Date: Sun Nov 23 06:25:10 2014
Kenya bus attack survivor tells how gunmen selected their victims
Al-Shabaab extremists singled out and killed 28 passengers who could not
recite Islamic creed, Kenyan police say
* Associated Press in Nairobi
* Sunday 23 November 2014 03.55 GMT
One gunman shot from the right, one from the left, each killing the
non-Muslims lying in a line on the ground, growing closer and closer to
Douglas Ochwodho, who was in the middle.
And then the shooting stopped. Apparently each gunman thought the other shot
Ochwodho. He lay perfectly still until the 20 Islamic extremists left, and
he appears to be the only survivor of those who had been selected for death.
Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabaab, attacked a bus in northern
Kenya at dawn Saturday, singling out and killing 28 passengers who could not
recite an Islamic creed and were assumed to be non-Muslims, Kenyan police
said.
Those who could not say the Shahada, a tenet of the Muslim faith, were shot
at close range, Ochwodho said.
Nineteen men and nine women were killed in the bus attack, said Kenyan
police chief David Kimaiyo.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the killings through its radio station
in Somalia, saying it was in retaliation for raids by Kenyan security forces
carried out earlier this week on four mosques at the Kenyan coast.
Kenya's military said it responded to the killings with air strikes later on
Saturday that destroyed the attackers' camp in Somalia and killed 45 rebels.
"The United States condemns in the strongest terms today's horrific attack
in Kenya by the terrorist group al-Shabab against innocent civilians," said
Bernadette Meehan, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council in
Washington.
"The United States stands with our Kenyan partners in the effort to counter
the threat of terrorism and affirms our ongoing commitment to working with
all Kenyans to combat these atrocities," her statement said.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, also condemned the attack.
The bus travelling to the capital, Nairobi, with 60 passengers was hijacked
about 31 miles from the town of Mandera near Kenya's border with Somalia,
said two police officers who insisted on anonymity because they were ordered
not to speak to the press.
The attackers first tried to wave the bus down but it did not stop, so the
gunmen sprayed it with bullets, said the police. When that did not work they
shot a rocket propelled grenade at it, the officers said.
The gunmen took control of the vehicle and forced it off the road where they
ordered all the passengers out of the vehicle and separated those who
appeared to be non-Muslims - mostly non-Somalis - from the rest.
The survivor, Douglas Ochwodho, a non-Muslim head teacher of a private
primary school in Mandera, said he was travelling home for the Christmas
vacation since school had closed.
Ochwodho said the passengers who did not look Somali were separated from the
others. The non-Somali passengers were then asked to recite the Shahada, an
Islamic creed declaring oneness with God. Those who could not recite the
creed were ordered to lie down. Ochwodho was among those who had to lie on
the ground.
Two gunmen started shooting those on the ground; one gunman started from the
left and other from the right, Ochwodho said. When they reached him they
were confused on whether either had shot him, he said.
Ochwodho lay still until the gunmen left, he said. He then ran back to the
road and got a lift from a pick-up truck back to Mandera. He spoke from a
hospital bed where he was being treated for shock.
Seventeen of the 28 dead were teachers, according to the police commander in
Mandera county.
A shortage of personnel and lack of equipment led to a slow response by
police when the information was received, said officers. They said the
attackers had more sophisticated weaponry than the police who waited for
military reinforcements before responding.
Kenya has been hit by a series of gun and bomb attacks blamed on al-Shabaab,
who are linked to al-Qaida, since it sent troops into Somalia in October
2011. Authorities say there have been at least 135 attacks by al-Shabaab
since then, including the assault on Nairobi's upscale Westgate Mall in
September 2013 in which 67 people were killed. Al-Shabaab said it was
responsible for other attacks on Kenya's coast earlier this year which
killed at least 90 people.
Al-Shabaab is becoming "more entrenched and a graver threat to Kenya,"
warned the International Crisis Group in a September report to mark the
anniversary of the Westgate attack. The report said the Islamic extremists
are taking advantage of long-standing grievances of Kenya's Muslim
community, such as official discrimination and marginalisation.
Kenya has been struggling to contain growing extremism in the country.
Earlier this week the authorities shut down four mosques at the Kenyan coast
after police alleged they found explosives and a gun when they raided the
places of worship.
Some Muslims believe the police planted the weapons to justify closing the
mosques, Kheled Khalifa, a human rights official said Friday warning that
methods being used to tackle extremism by government will increase support
for radicals.
One person was killed during the raid on two of the mosques on Monday.
Police said they shot dead a young man trying to hurl a grenade at them.
The government had previously said the four mosques were recruitment centers
for al-Shabaab.
The bus that was attacked by gunmen is brought to the police station in
Mandera town, north-eastern Kenya.The bus that was attacked by gunmen is
brought to the police station in Mandera town, north-eastern Kenya.
Photograph: EPA
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