One gunman shot from the right, one from the left, each killing the non-Muslims lying in a line on the ground, growing closer and closer to Douglas Ochwodho, who was in the middle.

And then the shooting stopped. Apparently each gunman thought the other shot Ochwodho. He lay perfectly still until the 20 Islamic extremists left, and he appears to be the only survivor of those who had been selected for death.

Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, attacked a bus in northern Kenya at dawn on Saturday, singling out and killing 28 passengers who could not recite an Islamic creed and were assumed to be non-Muslims, Kenyan police said.

Those who could not say the Shahada, a tenet of the Muslim faith, were shot at close range, Ochwodho said.

Nineteen men and nine women were killed in the bus attack, said Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the killings through its radio station in Somalia, saying it was in retaliation for raids by Kenyan security forces carried out earlier this week on four mosques at the Kenyan coast.

Attack condemned

Kenya's military said it responded to the killings with airstrikes later Saturday that destroyed the attackers' camp in Somalia and killed 45 rebels.

"The United States condemns in the strongest terms today's horrific attack in Kenya by the terrorist group al-Shabab against innocent civilians," said Bernadette Meehan, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council in Washington. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the attack.

The bus traveling to the capital, Nairobi, with 60 passengers was hijacked about 50 kilometers from the town of Mandera near Kenya's border with Somalia, said two police officers who insisted on anonymity.

Kenya has been struggling to contain growing extremism in the country. Earlier this week the authorities shut down four mosques on the Kenyan coast after police alleged they found explosives and a gun when they raided the places of worship.