Africa

Home page

Africa

Al-Shabab blamed for Kenya bus blast

24 December 2010 01:06 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Kenyan authorities have linked Somalia’s al-Shabab group to a grenade explosion inside a Uganda-bound bus in central Nairobi that claimed three lives, APA reports quoting Press TV.

"We have strong reasons to believe there is a link between the man behind the deadly explosion and the militant al-Shabab group. The suspect has been identified as Albert John Olando Mulando," Kenya’s police commissioner Mathew Iteere told Press TV on Thursday.

He added that the 35-year-old Tanzanian suspect was also among the victims of the terror attack.

The grenade attack also injured at least 30 people in Nairobi’s central business district on Monday.

Most of the injured were Ugandans who were heading home for Christmas holidays.

In June, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for twin bomb attacks that rocked the Ugandan capital of Kampala.

At least 74 people were killed when the blasts took place at an Ethiopian restaurant south of the capital and another at a rugby sports club in the east of Kampala. The victims were watching the FIFA World Cup final.

The explosions came two days after an al-Shabab commander called for militants to attack sites in Uganda and Burundi. The two African nations contribute troops to the African Union peacekeeping force in violence-plagued Somalia.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Over the past two decades, up to one million people have lost their lives due to fighting between rival factions, famine and disease.