Attack injuring 10 is labelled a terrorist act by authorities as country remains on edge after mall massacre by al-Shabaab

A grenade attack on a popular nightclub outside the coastal Kenyan city of Mombasa wounded at least 10 people early on Thursday, police said.

The incident occurred at 3.30am at a nightclub frequented by tourists in Diani about 15 miles from Mombasa, they said. It resembled explosions in 2012 and 2013 that were blamed on Somali militants.

“The club was busy with new year revellers. Three people appeared from the other side of the road and threw a grenade at the night club which [the grenade] exploded injuring 10 people. The attackers escaped on a motor bike,” Jack Ekakuro, Kwale area police chief, told journalists at the scene.

“It cannot be anything else but a terrorist attack. A grenade is a not a maize cob that any village boy can handle and throw around at will.”

Ekakuro did not say who was behind the attack but the government has in the past put the blame on Somalia’s al-Shabaab insurgents, who have demanded the withdrawal of the Kenyan troops working with African peacekeepers to fight the group in Somalia.

Kenya’s coast is dependent on tourism and has been plagued by attacks blamed on Islamist militants and their sympathisers.

In September al-Shabaab gunmen attacked a Nairobi shopping mall, killing at least 67 civilians in the country’s worst incident since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy that killed more than 200 people.

source: Reuters