Moderate Muslims are constantly being told that they need to do more to denounce terrorism. Now a group of Kenyan Muslims has gone one step further,when the bus in which they were travelling was ambushed on Monday by Islamic terrorists. According to Kenyan media, they refused to be split into groups by religion, and told the terrorists to “kill them together or leave them alone.” Via the BBC:
At least two people were killed in the attack, near the north-eastern village of El Wak on the Somali border. The Somali based al-Shabab group says it carried out the attack.
The attack happened as the bus traveled along the border with Somalia and Ethiopia, from the capital Nairobi to the town of Mandera.
“The locals showed a sense of patriotism and belonging to each other,” Mandera governor Ali Roba told Kenya’s private Daily Nation newspaper. The militants decided to leave after the passengers’ show of unity, he added.
According to CNN, most of the passengers were women.
In the Monday attack, the gunmen ordered Muslim passengers to come out of the bus and separate themselves from the Christians. There were more than 100 passengers on board. The Muslim passengers refused. They gave the Christian women their hijabs and helped others hide behind bags in the bus, passenger Abdiqafar Teno told CNN.
“They told them, ‘If you want to kill us, then kill us. There are no Christians here,” he said. A Christian man who tried to run away was captured and shot dead, Teno said. The driver of a truck, which was trailing the bus, was also killed.
Al-Shabab’s terrifying m.o. is to conduct a raid, separate Christians from Muslims and then slaughter the Christians. Last April, the terrorists killed 148 Christians in such an attack at Garissa University College. A year ago, al-Shabab attacked a bus near Mandera, killing 28 Christians who were travelling to Nairobi for the Christmas holidays.
Kenyans of all religious stripes have had to suffer the undesired consequences of these attacks.
An attack last year in Mandera, in which Christians were killed after being separated from Muslims, caused the departure of more than 2,000 teachers, as well as many health workers who had come from other parts of the country.
The Muslims passengers are receiving much deserved praise throughout Kenya for repelling the attack.
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