50 People Killed In Al Shabaab Militants Attack

Islamist gunmen have killed at least 15 people in a night-time raid on Kenya's coast just 24 hours after an attack left at least 50 dead, police have said.

Somalia-based militant group Al Shebaab claimed responsibility claiming they killed as many as 20 people.

Police spokespeople said the militants attacked the villages of Majembeni and Poromoko in Lamu County at about 1am local time.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Ole Lenku said: "These attacks are unfortunate and the perpetrators must be held accountable.

"We condemn yesterday's killings and the latest attack today where about 15 other people were killed and houses burnt."

The area is close to Mpeketoni, on the coast between Mombasa and the Somali border, where the extremists murdered dozens of people in a raid on Sunday night.

It is thought that the two attacks were carried out by the same group.

Al Shabaab military operations spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab threatened the onslaught would continue and said: "We raided villages around Mpeketoni again last night. Our operations in Kenya will continue."

The official government figure for the number killed in Sunday nights attack was 48, but Sky sources in the area counted 50 bodies.

A group of gunmen entered Mpeketoni on minibuses and started "shooting people around in town", a spokesman for the interior ministry said.

People watching a World Cup game were among those targeted and three hotels, a bank and a petrol station were also hit.

Al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked group which carried out an attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi last year, said the first attack was a revenge for attacks inside Somalia by Kenyan forces. Foreign tourists were warned to stay out of Kenya.