MOSCOW, November 23 (Sputnik) — The murder of 28 people travelling on a bus near Kenya-Somalia border is an attempt to spark a religious war, Kenyan presidential adviser Abdikadir Mohamed has said in an interview with the BBC.
"The aim is to create conflict between the Muslims and the non-Muslims in this country," Mohamed was quoted as saying. "The aim is to create a religious war, religious strife, in Kenya."
He went on to say that many Muslim leaders strongly condemned the attack and called on all Kenyans, irrespective of their religion, to unite against these "heinous crimes".
On Saturday, 28 people of the total 60 travelling on a bus were killed in Mandera County near Kenya-Somalia border. The attackers are said to have ordered the passengers to read from the Koran and killed those who failed to do so.
According to the BBC, the al-Shabaab group stated that the attack had been carried out in retaliation for recent killings of Muslims by the Kenyan security forces in Mombasa. Kenyan authorities are said to have started identifying the killers in order to bring them to justice.
Al-Shabaab is a militant group in Somalia linked with the international terrorist organization al-Qaeda. The group took over most of southern Somalia in 2006 and later continued its insurgency in southern and central areas of the country.
In 2011, Kenya declared war on al-Shabaab and sent troops to Somalia. Since then, northeastern regions of Kenya have been under a number of terror attacks by the militants.
