12 people were killed on Tuesday in a bomb blast at a guest house in northeast Kenya. The attack was claimed by Shabaab militants.

A senior police officer told AFP, “We have found 12 bodies so far after we managed to access the building.”

A local police chief, Job Boronjo, in Mandera County also confirmed the toll, “We are still combing the area with the help of anti-terrorism police and sniffer dogs in the ongoing search and rescue.”

11 men and a woman were killed in the 3.30 am blast at the Bishar Guesthouse. Part of the building was collapsed by the blast.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militant group claimed the attack in a message broadcast by its Radio Andalus media organisation, claiming 15 were killed.

This is second attack in Mandera in a month, the previous one was on 6 October was claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab group. 6 people were killed in that incident, which targeted a gated residential building that mainly housed non-ethnic Somalis and non-Muslims, less than a kilometer from the volatile Somalia border town of Beled Hawa.

The shabaab has fought to overthrow the internationally-backed government in Mogadishu since 2007, but turned its sights on Kenya when the army was sent into Somalia in 2011 to fight the Islamic insurgents.