According to the Kenyan authorities, Somali jihadists of al-Shabaab are responsible for the attack conducted in the early hours of dawn on January 3 against a village in Lamu County, Widho.
One man was reportedly beheaded, while five others shot with firearms and then burned while they were probably still alive, while some homes set afire and others looted.
The Lamu county police commissioner believes the attack was carried out by al-Shabaab militias, based on analysis of how the attack was conducted, although he added that he did not rule out other paths of investigation, such as rivalries for control of land by coastal communities. Four of the five victims found at the site of the attack are not local residents, thus raising doubts about the incident.
To date, no claim has been made on the attack in Lamu county, and this leads to suspicions in the opposite direction to the hypothesis of al-Shabaab that, on the contrary, usually does not delay in claiming responsibility for their attacks, especially for propaganda purposes.
The Somali jihadist organization of al-Shabaab, in fact, was not slow in claiming responsibility for the attack carried out on January 3rd in the county of Lamu, in which 21 soldiers of the Kenyan army lost their lives, including an intelligence officer.
The Kenyan soldiers died in the explosion of an explosive device detonated at the passage of their convoy, between the villages of Sankuran and Kayunga, which was followed by an intense firefight.
That of January 3 against the convoy of the Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF) is one of the bloodiest attacks conducted by al-Shabaab militias in the region, raising alarm among local authorities.
Violence returned to Lamu county the following January 5, with an attack that caused 2 deaths and numerous injuries in the area of the village of Hindi, where numerous homes were set on fire. Also in this case the suspicions of the Kenyan authorities are oriented towards Somali al-Shabaab terrorists, although investigations are still underway and various hypotheses are considered.
A further episode of violence again involved Lamu county on January 7, when 4 local police officers were killed in an attack conducted between the villages of Mkunumbi and Hindi. Also, in this case the suspicions officially fall on al-Shabaab, although the trail of struggles for the control of land is not explicitly excluded by investigators.
