Several Kenyan police officers were killed in an attack by suspected
Somali militants in the northeastern Garissa county, where 148 students
were massacred last month, police said.
A police spokesman, George Kimoti, confirmed there was an attack on
Monday night in the Garissa region, and two security officials said many
police officers had been killed in an al-Shabab ambush but could not
give an exact death toll.
Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper reported that at least 20 police
officers were feared dead in the attack in Garissa's Yumbis village.
The victims - who were on their way to rescue another team of
officers wounded in an attack earlier on Monday - were moving in a
convoy of four vehicles that the militants then burned. In the earlier
attack, three police officers had been injured when their vehicle ran
over a land mine, the officials said.
The same area was in the spotlight last week after suspected
al-Shabab militants raided mosques and started to preach to
congregations of Muslims. The militants reportedly hoisted flags before
the security forces arrived. Kenya's interior ministry said on Friday it
had "thwarted an attempted attack" on Thursday evening after the
residents of Yumbis residents spotted armed militants in the area and
alerted the authorities.
The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab has carried out several attacks
in Kenya in retaliation for Kenya's military involvement in Somalia,
where Kenyan troops are part of an African Union force bolstering the
Western-backed central government in Mogadishu.
Despite major setbacks in 2014, al-Shabab continues to wage an
insurgency against Somalia's government and remains a threat in the East
African region.
The group claimed responsibility for a deadly assault last month on a
college in Garissa town, as well as a 2013 assault on an upscale mall
in the capital, Nairobi, in which at least 67 people were killed.
Kenyan officials are reportedly pondering the construction of a wall
along the border with Somalia as part of the government's efforts to
stem the attacks.