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Al-Shabaab kills 12 in a hotel raid in Kenya

Al Shabaab soldiers sit outside a building during patrol along the streets of Dayniile district in Southern Mogadishu, March 5, 2012. | REUTERS/Feisal Omar

Militant group Al-Shabaab raided the Bishaaro Hotel in the Kenyan town of Mandera and killed 12 people on Tuesday.

The assailants used explosives to break the metallic doors at the hotel before they proceeded to shoot the 12 guests in their rooms, Daily Nation reported.

The Mandera East police has revealed that 10 of the 12 victims were visiting to stage performances at the schools in the town.

Independent Online reported that six people have been rescued from the debris of the collapsed hotel several hours after the attack.

"We don't know how many people are still trapped there in the rubble but efforts to reach them are ongoing," a police offer said.

Al-Shabaab admitted on the pro-insurgent Somali radio station Andalus that it had carried out the attack.

In Somalia, a senior intelligence officer was killed by members of the militant group at a mosque in Mogadishu.

The group also claimed responsibility for ramming a truck bomb into the military base of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in Beledweyne. Al Shabaab spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said that 17 soldiers were killed in the attack. AMISOM officals and police have not confirmed the figures reported by the militant group.

Al-Shabaab vows to continue the attacks until the Kenyan forces are withdrawn from Somalia but the Kenyan government has repeatedly stated that it would not yield to the militants.

Earlier this month, the group carried out a grenade and gun attack in Mandera killing six Christians.

In 2015, the Kenyan government proposed to build a secuirty wall along the Kenyan-Somalian border to keep the militant group out but there was strong resistance from the Somalian government and the border communities.

Al-Shabaab targets non-Muslims in most of its attacks. In December 2015, the group had to abandon its plan to kill Christian passengers in a bus when Kenyan Muslims refused to leave the vehicle.

The Muslims reportedly told the militants "to kill them together or leave them alone." However, two people were still killed in the attack which happened near the north-eastern village of El Wak on the Somali border.