Terrorists from al-Shabaab, the Somali al-Qaeda affiliate, attacked the small Kenyan coastal town of Mpeketoni near the tourist center of Lamu on Sunday and killed 48 people, according to officials in the east African nation.

Men watching the World Cup at a hotel were systematically executed while women were forced to watch, according to Kenya police commander David Kimaiyo. The terrorists said the execution was in response to the activity of Kenyan troops in Somalia. Kenya has sent troops there to counter al-Shabaab kidnappings and attacks.

Like Nairobi’s Westgate Mall attack last year, the Mpeketoni attackers reportedly gave life-or-death religious tests.

It is said Shakir Wahiyib, described as an enforcer for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), has executed people who failed his “Quranic quiz” in Iraq. ISIS has captured large areas of northern Iraq in the past week and has posted videos of mass executions.

Christian Kenyans were specifically targeted for execution. “They came to our house at around 8 p.m. and asked us in Swahili whether we were Muslims. My husband told them we were Christians and they shot him in the head and chest,” a resident told CBC News.

The terrorist group joined al-Qaeda in 2012. It imposes an austere form of Sharia law on rural regions, engages in kidnapping and the murder of aid workers. It is suspected of aligning with al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Boko Haram, the Nigerian terror group reportedly responsible for the murder of an estimated 10,000 people and the kidnapping of school girls.

AQIM is takes inspiration from the religious teaching of Salafism in Saudi Arabia, which historically played a crucial role in the training of the CIA and Pakistan ISI organized and supported Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

Pakistani intelligence is directly involved in al-Shabaab terrorism. In July of 2010, after a bombing attributed to the group that killed 76 people watching the soccer World Cup final, a number ofPakistani nationals were arrested.

Abu Musa Mombasa, a Pakistani citizen, purportedly serves as al-Shabaab’s chief of security and training, according to a Long War Journal report posted in 2010.

In July of 201, the Christian Science Monitor reported “veteran insurgents from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have relocated to the chaotic country of Somalia in large enough numbers to spark worry inside the international community, according to Kenya’s foreign minister.”

Pakistan’s ISI and the CIA have worked together since the early 1980s to create terrorist organizations and radical Muslims.