Terrorist violence in Nairobi continues

Nobody claims responsibility for attack in Eastleigh

Three blasts in central Nairobi killed at least six people and wounded 25 in a coordinated terrorist strike on 31 March, the latest in a series of attacks in the Kenyan capital in recent months.

The explosions occurred in Eastleigh, a predominantly Somali-populated Eastleigh suburb, between a cafe and a restaurant on 11th Street in the California area, at about 19.30. One of the explosions collapsed the first-floor walls of a restaurant whose doors were locked preventing people from escaping, according to the owner.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the blast although many suspect al-Shabab, the militant group behind last September's attack on Westgate Mall in which at least 67 people were killed. The al-Shabab militants say their attacks on Kenyan soil are in retribution for Kenya's ongoing military intervention in Somalia. Kenyan troops have been deployed in Somalia for the last two years as part of efforts by the UN-backed government to oust al-Shabab insurgents.

Known locally as "Little Mogadishu", Eastleigh is linked with terrorism in Kenya and some of the district's inhabitants are known to be sympathisers of the Somali militants. On 30 March, a man was killed near the area's Al Bushraa Islamic Centre after an explosive device he was assembling detonated prematurely. Two days earlier the country's president Uhuru Kenyatta signed a pact with the Kenyan-Somali community to collaborate in the fight against terrorism.

Last December a terrorist threw a grenade into a minibus as it drove through Eastleigh causing four deaths and injuring over 30 people.