Grenade attack injures 10 in Kenya

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 3:30 am at a nightclub frequented by tourists in Diani some 16 miles outside Mombasa, they said. It resembles explosions in 2012 and 2013 that were blamed on Somali armed group Al-Shabab.

The blast followed a deadly bombing on Wednesday in neighboring Somalia that left at least 11 people dead at a Mogadishu hotel. Al-Shabab, which is believed to have links to Al-Qaeda, has been suspected in carrying out that attack as well.

Thursday’s grenade attack marred ongoing New Year’s celebrations.

"The club was busy with New Year revelers. 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 Al-Shabab fighters, who have demanded the withdrawal of Kenyan troops who have joined African peacekeepers fighting the group in Somalia.

Kenya's coast depends on tourism and has been plagued by attacks blamed on the fighters and their sympathizers.

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 U.S. embassy that killed more than 200 people.

Al Jazeera and Reuters