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KENYA-UNREST-SOMALIA-POLICE
Eight killed in Kenya bus attack
NAIROBI, Dec 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Several police officers were among at
least eight people killed in an attack on a bus in northeast Kenya believed
to have been staged by the Somali Islamist Shebaab group, a presidential
spokesperson said Saturday.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta had been briefed on the “brutal” murders
of eight people, including police, during the jihadist attack in Wajir
county, the spokesperson said in a statement.
“We lost seven police officers in the bus attack,” a senior police
source told AFP.
“The total number of the people killed are 10. One was identified as a
local doctor,” the source said.
A police statement released Friday evening gave no casualty toll, just
noting the bus, which linked the towns of Wajir and Mandera, came under
attack about 17:30 local time (1430 GMT).
“Security forces are pursuing the killers,” the state house spokesperson
said, adding, “the government will not relent in its ruthless crackdown on
criminal elements including suspected terrorists”.
The area where the attack took place borders Somalia, which is regularly
the scene of Shebaab raids.
One June 15, at least eight police officers were killed in similar
circumstances in Wajir county.
Home-made weapons and bombs have been used to kill dozens of police and
soldiers in the northern and eastern border regions, where such attacks are
relatively common.
The Al-Qaeda affiliate Shebaab has been fighting for more than a decade
to overthrow successive internationally-backed Somali governments and has
previously resorted to direct attacks on road vehicles.
A regional peacekeeping force in Somalia, AMISOM, which chased Shebaab
out of the Somali capital Mogadishu in 2011, includes troops from a number of
African nations including Kenya, making police and troops from the country a
target for the jihadists.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1419 hrs