MOMBASA, Kenya — A 9-year-old boy was killed and several other children were wounded Sunday when a grenade was hurled into a church in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, two days after Kenyan forces invaded the last major stronghold of the al-Shabab militant group in Somalia.
No suspects have been apprehended, but suspicion immediately focused on sympathizers of al-Shabab who have attacked several churches and public gathering spots in Kenya in the last year.
Kenyan officials have said that they do not believe that the relatively small attacks are the work of al-Shabab, whose fighters have killed hundreds of people in Somalia with huge suicide bombs. Al-Shabab’s supporters in Kenya do not have the skills or supplies to stage large-scale operations and turn to less complicated attacks like the one Sunday.