March-31-10
Nairobi - Suspected Somali insurgents attacked a Kenyan paramilitary security unit camp on Tuesday in a remote border area and injured an unknown number of officers, a top Kenyan police official said.
"There was an attack which occurred at about lunch hour (09:00 GMT). A group of heavily armed men opened fire and injured officers," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"They are suspected to be Shebab militants from Somalia. But they are being pursued," added the official. "We are yet to receive more details on this incident but no deaths on our side have been reported. A number of our officers are wounded."
The attack was against the General Service Unit - a paramilitary outfit - in Liboi, near the Kenya-Somalia border.
Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked Shebab have repeatedly threatened to attack Kenya, which backs the Horn of Africa's government that the radical Islamist group has been fighting and seeking to topple.
In January, the Shebab released a song threatening to march on Nairobi in retaliation for a deadly Kenyan police crackdown on Muslims protesting the arrest of a radical Jamaican cleric who had entered the east African state.
Kenya, which shares a long and porous north-eastern border with Somalia and has offered assistance to government troops battling the insurgents, has frequently expressed fears that Shebab suicide bombers would strike in Kenya.
The hardline militia controls much of central Somalia as well as the country's southern regions near the border with Kenya.
In recent years, the extremist fighters have carried out cross-border kidnappings.
Three foreign aid workers were kidnapped by Somali gunmen last year in towns near the border region months after two Catholic nuns were also abducted, and later freed.
Source: AFP