Bodies burnt and one victim beheaded in Kenyan village near Somalia – police

NAIROBI, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Unidentified attackers killed six men in a Kenyan coastal village near the border with Somalia, beheading one of the victims and burning four of the bodies, police said on Monday.

Kenyan authorities did not say who was behind the attack but the al Shabaab militant group in Somalia has made frequent incursions into the area targeting civilians in the past decade.

The group was not immediately available for comment.

One of the victims was stabbed and beheaded, a police report from the area, in the county of Lamu, showed, and the attackers torched his house.

The second victim had gunshot wounds to the head, police said, while four bodies were found burnt beyond recognition at a business premises, their hands tied behind them.

Angry at al Shabaab’s frequent incursions across the border, Kenya sent its troops into Somalia in 2011 to tackle the militants, who attacked an upmarket shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013 and a university in the northeast in 2015 in revenge.

Kenyan troops are still in Somalia as part of an African Union peacekeeping force.

Photo – file photo by EPA/DAI KUROKAWA