NAIROBI, Kenya — Daud Hassan Ali, a nomad’s son who lived in Britain for years, had recently returned to Somalia to teach English. Early Monday, witnesses said, he and three foreign teachers — a Briton and two Kenyans — were killed by Islamist insurgents during a raid on one of the few English-language schools in south-central Somalia.
A spokesman for the Shabab Islamist group said the teachers were killed by accident in crossfire. But several residents of Beledweyne, where the attack happened, said the teachers might have been singled out because they were suspected of preaching Christianity.
Another attack occurred about 200 miles away in Merka, where insurgents tossed a grenade into a crowded movie theater and killed four people Sunday night, apparently in an attempt to shut it down.
