Somali militant group al-Shabab claimed that they killed at least 28 people in an attack on a bus in northern Kenya.
The bus was travelling to the capital, Nairobi, when it was stopped in Mandera county, near the Somali border.
Gunmen separated out those they thought were non-Muslim before killing them, officials and witnesses said, reports BBC.
Al-Shabab, which has been mounting attacks in Kenya since 2011, said it carried out the attack.
A statement on a website linked to the Islamist group carried a statement saying the attack was carried out in retaliation for security raids on mosques in the coastal city of Mombasa earlier this week.
One of the passengers on the bus, Ahmed Mahat, told the BBC that there were more than 60 passengers on board when it was attacked, before dawn on Saturday, about 30km (19 miles) from Mandera town.
The driver tried to accelerate away, but the vehicle became stuck in mud caused by recent heavy rains, he said.
About 10 heavily armed men talking Somali ordered the passengers off the bus.
“When we got down, passengers were separated according to Somali and non-Somalis,” Mr Mahat said.
“The non-Somalis were ordered to read some verses of the holy Koran, and those who failed to read were ordered to lie down. One by one they were shot in the head at point blank range.”
Kenya’s Red Cross said emergency workers were trying to retrieve bodies from the scene. Security agencies were “in pursuit of the criminal gang” that carried out the attack, Kenya’s interior ministry said. It described the assailants as “bandits”.
After the attack, a local official quoted by Kenyan media said the government had failed to answer their pleas for extra security. “This place has been prone to attacks,” county official Abdullahi Abdirahman told The Daily Nation.
“This is not the first time the government has totally ignored us, and you can now see the how many innocent precious lives have been lost.”
KILLERS HEAD FOR BORDER
Police Inspector General David Kimaiyo told reporters that 19 men and nine women were killed. “Preliminary reports indicate that the attackers, who were heavily armed, later fled toward the border into Somali,” reports Reuters.
In response to the attack, Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) launched ground and air raid and destroyed a camp believed to have been used by the attackers.
“The KDF operation will continue until they arrest the attackers,” said Col. David Obonyo, KDF spokesman.
Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for a 2013 attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall that killed at least 67 people and attacks in Lamu in June and July that killed at least 65.
The group has vowed to drive Kenyan and other African Union peacekeeping troops out of Somalia.
Saturday’s attack showed al Shabaab remains able to strike both in Somalia and abroad despite the killing of its leader Ahmed Abdi Godane in September.
The Mandera region is awash with guns due to its proximity to Somalia, where al Shabaab has been fighting to topple the government, and Ethiopia, whose armed Oromo Liberation Front has made incursions into Kenya.
Insecurity plagues East Africa’s biggest economy, prompting Western nations to issue travel warnings and hitting the tourism industry, a major source of hard currency.