al-shabab

Three years ago, Solomon Osman woke up in a dimly lit room in Garissa, Kenya, after armed men grabbed him and stuffed him into a truck as he was selling clothes on the street in Mombasa 280 miles away.

Sitting under a veranda at the former headquarters of Somali Airlines, Ali Bashir sipped coffee and chewed khat, an African herb, as he recounted 15 years of anarchy fomented by al-Shabab Islamic terrorists.

Religious tensions between Christians and Muslims have flared after the government extended amnesty to youth who denounce the Muslim terrorist group al-Shabab, a step Christian leaders condemned.

The Kenyan government has cracked down on funding for al-Shabab, the Somali group that claimed responsibility for killing 148 mostly Christian students at Garissa University College.

The rise of the so-called Islamic State dominated headlines in 2014, and trained the eyes of the world back on the Middle East. Perhaps it should have looked at Africa as well.

Church leaders say attacks by Somalia’s al-Shabab militants in Kenya are increasingly taking on an anti-Christian tenor, including targeted executions of non-Muslims.