A bomb blast at a guesthouse in northeast Kenya killed at least 12 people on Tuesday, in an attack claimed by Shabaab militants which last hit the area earlier this month.

“We have found 12 bodies so far after we managed to access the building,” a senior police officer told AFP.

“We are still combing the area with the help of anti-terrorism police and sniffer dogs in the ongoing search and rescue.”

Eleven men and one woman were killed in the 3:30 am (0030 GMT) blast at the Bisharo lodge, a police source told AFP. The toll was confirmed in a government statement that said part of the building was collapsed by the blast.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militant group claimed the attack in a message broadcast by its Radio Andalus media organization, claiming 15 were killed.

“This attack is part of a series of attacks in which the Mujahideen are hunting down infidels” in northeast Kenya, the group said.

It is the second Shabaab strike in Mandera in three weeks. The previous one on October 6 killed six people at a gated residential building that mainly housed non-ethnic Somalis and non-Muslims, less than a kilometer from the volatile Somalia border town of Beled Hawa.

Source: AFP