al Shabaab say they attacked Kenya coastal town

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somali Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility on Monday for an overnight attack on the Kenyan coastal town of Mpeketoni that killed at least 50 people, some of them soccer fans at a venue screening World Cup matches.

"Commandos last night carried out a successful raid on the town of Mpeketoni," al Shabaab said in a statement sent to Reuters. As reasons, it cited the deployment of Kenyan troops to Somalia and what it called Kenya's extra-judicial killings of Muslim scholars, a charge Nairobi has denied.