(Security): Five Civilians killed in Kenya, some beheaded in Al-Shebab attack in the East

Five civilians were killed and some beheaded in an attack on Saturday evening in two villages in eastern Kenya claimed by the radical Islamist Shebab, police and local sources said.

A resident of one of the villages, Hassan Abdul, said that "the women were locked in the houses and the men were ordered to come out, they were tied up with ropes and massacred".

"In total, five people were killed, including a secondary school pupil. All those killed had their throats slit and some were beheaded", he added, claiming to have counted between 20 and 30 assailants.

The Shebab, a group affiliated to al-Qaeda, claimed in a statement to have carried out an operation on the village of Juhudi, saying they had killed "six members of the Kenyan infidels" and "burnt down ten houses where Christians were living".

For more than 15 years, the Shebab have been fighting the federal Somali government, backed by the international community, to establish Islamic law in that country in the Horn of Africa.

Since its military intervention in southern Somalia in 2011 and then its participation in the African Union force in Somalia (Amisom, now Atmis) created in 2012 to combat this insurgency, neighbouring Kenya has also been targeted by this group, which also recruits among the local youth.

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