NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept 11 – Islamist extremists from Somalia are believed responsible for an attack on a beach resort in northern Kenya in which a British tourist was killed and another abducted, Kenyan police said Sunday.
“We suspect they were al-Shebab,” said a police official who declined to be named, referring to the group waging an insurgency against the Western-backed government in Somalia. “We are pursuing them at the Somali border.”
The official said a Briton was killed in an attack on a tourist lodge in the Kiunga marine reserve in the Lamu archipelago off Kenya’s northern coast.
“A woman believed to be his wife was taken away,” he said, adding that police were using “all means”, including speedboats and helicopters, to try to track the abductors.
“We have launched a massive security operation but we are experiencing difficulties because they might have escaped using a speedboat.”