by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Members of the al-Shabaab Islamic terror group beheaded five men and burned down several houses during attacks in Salama-Juhudi villages in Lamu, Kenya on Saturday, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Affiliated with al-Qaeda, the Salafi-jihadist al-Shabaab group is based in Somalia but carries out jihadist attacks in other African countries as well.
In a statement Sunday morning, local police said a village elder had reported the murders to them. “We wish to confirm that an incident was reported to us at around 9 p.m. Saturday in Salama-Juhudi and we dispatched a team to rescue and thwart any advancement from the suspected Al-Shabaab members,” the police statement said. “Upon arrival, we found that they had already killed people, set houses on fire and made away with livestock. Five people were confirmed dead.”
“All the deceased were men, and one of them was a 19-year old student who had come home for term break,” police statement continued. “All the victims were murdered in cold blood with some tied with ropes in their hands and legs with ropes behind their backs and butchered and others blindfolded and then executed.”
A local villager witnessed the attacks and told ICC: “I was still awake at the time the terrorist ambushed our village. I heard screams coming from my neighbor’s house, and after some minutes, their house went up in flames. I knew there was danger, and I could not leave anything to chance.
“They went on attacking people and burning houses, and after an hour, they arrived at my home. I saw a large group of about 20, and some of them went to the pen and carried away all my seven goats.”