At least 14 people were killed in an attack early Tuesday in the country's north by al-Shabaab, Islamic extremist rebels from neighbouring Somalia, a Kenyan official said.

Eleven people were also wounded in the attack which took place in Soko Mbuzi village in Mandera County near Kenya's border with Somalia, said Mandera County Commissioner Alex Nkoyo.

The Somali-based militants, who are allied to al-Qaeda, have killed at least 85 people, all of them non-Muslims, in Mandera County in the last eight months.

Al-Shabab has vowed to carry out attacks in Kenya as retribution for the country sending troops to Somalia to fight the militants. Kenya sent its troops to Somalia in October 2011 following a series of cross-border attacks including kidnappings which the government blamed on al-Shabaab.

The Somali government, supported by the U.N. and backed by troops from African Union countries including Kenya, has pushed al-Shabaab out of Somalia's major cities but the rebels still control some rural areas and carry out bombings and attacks on the capital, Mogadishu, and attacks on Kenyan targets.