Islamic terrorists hijacked a bus at gunpoint in Kenya yesterday and executed 28 passengers – including nine women – who failed a ‘Muslim test’.

The killers, who belong to the Somali group Al Shabab, ordered the passengers to recite verses from the Koran. Those who could not were shot.

The militants fired a rocket- propelled grenade to stop the bus. The terrified passengers were ordered to get off in remote countryside 19 miles from the town of Mandera in northern Kenya, near the border with Somalia.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

The bodies of 28 non-Muslims who were executed today by Islamic Shebab lie on the ground in Mandera, before being taken to a nearby hospital

The 60 passengers were separated into groups. Somalis were told to move to one side.

Witness Ahmed Mahat said that the non-Somalis were then ordered to declaim the requisite verses from the Koran. ‘Those who failed were ordered to lie down. One by one they were shot in the head at point-blank range.’

Mr Mahat, a teacher from Mandera, said some Somali men were also shot after pleading with the gunmen to spare the non-Muslim passengers. The bodies were left at the roadside while the terrorist gang tried to drive the bus away from the scene. When it got stuck in mud they fled on foot.

Teacher Douglas Ochwodho described how he was forced to watch helplessly as his wife was shot dead beside him.

Among the victims were several children, who were shot in the head at point-blank range alongside the other victims

Rescue workers walk near the Nairobi-bound bus that was ambushed outside Mandera town

From his hospital bed in Mandera he said: ‘When my turn came, the militiamen started arguing and by some miracle they passed me by. My wife’s blood was all over my body. In her way she saved my life. By luck I escaped through the bush with two other men after the gunmen left the scene.’

Many of the passengers, travelling overnight to the capital Nairobi, were civil servants and teachers going on annual leave.

Police said they were ‘in pursuit of the criminal gang’ that carried out the attack, but local officials have slammed security agencies for failing to guard routes known to be targeted by terrorist groups.

Municipal chief Abdullah Abdirahman said: ‘This is not the first time the government has totally ignored us and you can see now how many precious innocent lives have been lost.’ Police are said to fear being ambushed if they set up roadblocks to protect travellers. Yesterday it was left to Kenya’s Red Cross Society to retrieve bodies from the scene.

Security officers gather around the bodies of those who were killed at the scene of the attack

The killings took place after extremists hijacked a bus in Mandera, north Kenya, before separating the Muslims from the non-Muslims

Al Shabab, which is aligned to Al Qaeda, boasted of its killings in a statement by spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage that read: ‘By the grace of Allah, the Mujahideen successfully carried out an operation near Mandera early this morning which resulted in the perishing of 28 crusaders as revenge for the crimes committed by the Kenyan crusaders against our Muslim brethren in Mombasa.’

The militants have stepped up their deadly campaign against Kenyan security forces in the past few weeks in response to the mosque raids and the bombing of Al Shabab camps in Somalia by African Union and Kenyan troops.

Al Shabab had also warned of vengeance over the killing of their spiritual leader Ahmed Abdi Godane in a US airstrike two months ago. He had praised the attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall in 2013 in which 67 people were killed.

The gunmen hijacked the bus (pictured), which was on its way to Nairobi, before killing the 28 victims

Officials unload the bodies of the dead passengers at the Churomo Mortuary in Nairobi