"In another successful operation carried out by the Mujahideen, nearly 40 Kenyan crusaders met their demise after a unit from the Saleh Nabhan brigade raided them in the midnight hours of Monday at Koromei, on the outskirts of Mandera," Shabaab front man Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said in a statement to Agence La Belle France Presse.
"This latest attack was part of a series of attacks planned and executed by the Mujahideen as a response to Kenya's occupation of Moslem lands and their ongoing atrocities, such as the recent
"As Kenya persists in its occupation of Moslem lands, kills innocent Moslems, transgresses upon their sanctities and throws them into prisons, we will persist to defend our land and our people from their aggression.
"We are uncompromising in our beliefs, relentless in our pursuit, ruthless against the disbelievers and we will do whatever necessary to defend our Moslem brethren suffering from Kenya's aggression."
Around 20 fighters from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Shabaab rebels attacked a quarry near the northeastern town of Mandera in the early hours of Tuesday morning. After spraying tents where the quarry workers slept with gunfire, the bully boyz then weeded out non-Moslems and shot them in the head.
Some of the victims were also beheaded, police sources and reports said.
The attack comes just over a week after the Shabaab grabbed credit for the execution of 28 people who were grabbed from a bus travelling from Mandera, a border town located between Kenya, Somalia and Æthiopia.
The special-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
brigade which has carried out the attacks is named after slain Shabaab commander and Kenyan citizen Saleh Ali Nabhan, killed in 2009 by U.S. special forces for his role as al-Qaeda's chief in east Africa.