NAIROBI (Reuters) – Four police officers were killed when their vehicle overran an improvised explosive in north east Kenya that police suspect members of al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab laid on a road.
The incident happened late on Tuesday when the vehicle was escorting a convoy of buses between the towns of Banisa and Mandera, prompting another security team from Banisa to respond.
“Upon reaching the scene, they were attacked by the suspected al Shabaab. The officers managed to repulse and flush them out, and rescued the two (wounded) and retrieved the bodies,” Mandera police station said in a report late on Tuesday.
Al Shabaab has been fighting for more than a decade to topple Somalia’s central government. It has attacked targets in Kenya for years to pressure the country into withdrawing troops from peacekeepers supporting Somalia’s government.
In the last two weeks, attacks linked to al Shabaab have killed 10 people, according to police reports.
(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
