Islamist militants have killed at least 10 people in an overnight raid on a Kenyan coastal area, just 24 hours after a separate attack in a nearby village left 53 dead.

The bodies of 10 people were discovered among the remains of torched houses in Poromoko, which is on the Kenyan coast between the city of Mombasa and the Kenyan border.

Al-Shabaab militants claimed responsibility for the overnight attack on their radio station Andalus, but said they had in fact murdered 20 people.

Police are continuing to search the area for bodies and the death toll is expected to rise.

The area in which the 10 bodies were discovered is close to the village of Mpeketoni, where 53 people were brutally killed in a raid on Sunday while they watched the World Cup.

Local residents said militants also entered a third village, Mapenya, overnight, burning several homes to the ground, according to Kenya's Standard Digital.

Kenya's Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo confirmed the discovery of the bodies, but said he did not know if they were from fresh attacks, as claimed by locals, or if they belonged to undiscovered victims of the massacre on Sunday night.

Al-Shabab said the first attack was in revenge for Kenyan forces' killings inside Somalia. The extremist group warned foreign tourists to stay out of Kenya.

The back-to-back attacks underscore the weak security around the Lamu area, which lies just south of the Somalia border. Lamu once attracted swarms of foreign visitors but its tourist sector has been suffering in recent years because of increasing violence.

Sky News quoted al-Shabaab's military operations spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab as saying that the murders would continue over the coming days.

'We raided villages around Mpeketoni again last night. Our operations in Kenya will continue,' he said.

The Sunday night attack took place in the coastal village of Mpeketoni, about 30-miles southwest of the tourist centre of Lamu, and left 53 people dead.

Witnesses told how about 30 gunmen - believed to be members of Somali terror group al-Shabaab - arrived in the town in minibuses at 8pm yesterday before bursting into residents homes, shooting dead any man they thought was not Muslim.

'They came to our house at around 8pm and asked us in Swahili whether we were Muslims,' said Anne Gathigi. 'My husband told them we were Christians and they shot him in the head and chest.'

The assault in Mpeketoni began on Sunday night as residents watched World Cup matches on TV and lasted until early on Monday morning, with little resistance put up by Kenya's security forces. Cars and buildings still smoldered at daybreak.

Culled From  DM