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Three killed in Kenya attacks near Somali border
[Al Ahram] Gunmen stormed a Kenyan police compound in a town on the border with Somalia and sprayed bullets into officers' homes Thursday, killing two before setting more than 10 vehicles on fire, police said.The attack was claimed by Al-Shabaab  ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... , five days after operatives from the Somali group stormed a mall in Nairobi and held a four-day siege that left at least 67 dead in the worst attack on Kenya in 15 years. "They were very brutal, they were out to kill because they were shooting directly into the houses," a police officer based in the region said of the attack in the town of Mandera. "Two coppers were killed" and at least three maimed. "We are pursuing them, there is a security operation that is going on after that attack that has left a lot of destruction," the area's police chief Charlton Mureithi said. He said the attackers struck in the middle of the night when the coppers were asleep. In a separate incident on Tuesday night, attackers also killed one person and maimed four when they hurled a grenade at a market in the town of Wajir, further south, a local police officer said. "Mujahideen forces last night raided a Kenyan police base in Mandera town..., killing 2 and injuring 3 others," Al-Shabaab said on Twitter. "The Mujahideen burnt down police vehicles before leaving and made away with weapons and ammunition as Ghaneema (Arabic for loot or booty)," the message said. Such attacks against the police and other targets are frequent along Kenya's mostly non-existent border with Somalia, a region rife with banditry where unrest is routinely blamed on -- and claimed by -- Al-Shabaab. Kenya's Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said Wednesday that security at Kenya's borders had been heightened after the mall bloodbath. Posted by: Fred 2013-09-27 |
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