Two dead in suspected 'al Shabaab' raid near Mandera township

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

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Two people including an assailant were killed and eight others seriously injured in Mandera border town on Tuesday following an attack by suspected Somali Islamist group.

Mandera District Commissioner, Benson Leparmorijo confirmed the attack, saying three armed Somali militia believed to have been members of Al-Shabaab raided a shop in the town’s trading centre and shot a Kenya police reservist (KPR) officer who was at time buying some items from the shop several times on the head and chest.

Leparmorijo said the killed officer was unarmed at the time of the attack which comes as Kenyan soldiers increased onslaught on the Islamist group by capturing their military bases and killing scores of them in southern Somalia.

"The three armed assailants stormed the shop in a busy street in the fluid border town seemingly pursuing the home-guard, whom they shot severally before they escaped on foot," Leparmorijo said.

The district administrator said the angry members of the public who saw the killing of the KPR officers gave a chase the armed attackers and managed to wrestle of them before disarming and then putting him on tyre and doused him with petrol and then set him a blaze.

"Upon seeing their overpowered colleague apprehended by irate member of the public, one of the fleeing assailants hurled back a hand grenade to the pursuing crowd causing eight of them a heavily body," Leparmorijo said.

The latest by the militants comes as security forces at the border points are grappling with threats posed by the insurgents who have been laying landmines mainly targeting police and soldiers patrolling the Somalia border.

Since the Kenya military incursion into Somalia several attacks believed to have been carried out by Al-Shabaab have occurred in Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa and Dadaab districts of northern Kenya even as the military reports gains against the Islamist group by capturing their military bases and killing scores of them.

Leparmorijo said a loaded ceska pistol and unexploded hand grenade were recovered from the lynched attacker noting that those scathed from the explosion of the hand grenade hurled on them by fleeing bandits were admitted at Mandera district hospital, where they are undergoing treatment.

Amina Hassan who owned a shop next to the shop where the KPR was killed in the targeted attack by the armed men believed to have been members or sympathizers’ of the Al-Shabaab, whom prior incursion has led to Kenya Defence Force invasion in to war-torn Somalia said the attackers were young men of between 19-25 years of age and they were masked.

Mandera town council chairman councilor Mohamed Adan Khalif said the daring attempts of the public to give a chase to the armed assailants which led to the injuries of eight of them, was assign of dissatisfaction with deteriorating security situation in the border town despite heavy presence of security personnel in the area bordering the war-weary Somalia.

Khalif said the two of the attackers who managed to escape the public and the security officers’ pursuit disappeared toward the bordering Bulla-Hawa town.

He said they were now looking to their arrest with help of the Somali authority manning the border town.

The incident comes barely two months after improved security in the area which bore the brunt of the Operation Linda Inchi.

The East African nation a has been beset by a spate of grenade and landmine attacks since it launched cross border incursion into neighboring Somalia last month to pursue the al-Qaeda allied Al- Shabaab militant group.

Since the Kenya military incursion into Somalia several attacks believed to have been carried out by Al-Shabaab have occurred in Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa and Dadaab districts of northern Kenya even as the military reports gains against the Islamist group by capturing their military bases and killing scores of them.

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