Kenya sacks its security chiefs after massacre

SOMALI al-Shabab Islamist militants killed 36 non-Muslim workers at a quarry in northeast Kenya yesterday, prompting the president to change his top security officials to tackle a relentless wave of violence.

Kenyans have grown increasingly critical of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his government for failing to do more to defend the nation from the incessant militant attacks, which have killed well over 200 people since last year.

Al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for much of the bloodshed and says it will keep up the violence in an effort to persuade Kenya to pull its troops out of Somalia.

In yesterday’s attack, gunmen crept up on dozens of workers sleeping in tents in the middle of the night, a resident said, in the same area near the Somali border where a bus was hijacked just over a week ago and 28 passengers killed.

Village elder Hassan Duba said: “The militia separated the Muslims, then ordered the non-Muslims to lie down. They shot them on the head at close range.” At least two of the victims were beheaded. Public pressure has been mounting on Kenyatta to sack police chief David Kimaiyo and Interior Minister Joseph ole Lenku since al-Shabab’s attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall last year that killed 67 people, and the violence that followed.

Addressing the nation, Kenyatta said he had accepted Kimaiyo’s resignation and nominated a new interior minister, Joseph Nkaissery, a retired major-general. – Reuters