NAIROBI: Local officials said on Wednesday that eight police personnel were killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in Kenya. AFP reported that the incident occurred when the car of police personnel was blown up by an improvised explosive device (IED) in eastern Kenya, an area along the border with Somalia, where Al-Shabaab militant group has been waging a deadly war against the fragile government in Mogadishu for over 15 years.
John Otieno, North Eastern Regional Commissioner, confirmed that eight police officers were killed in the attack. It is suspected that Al-Shabaab has targeted the security forces and passenger vehicles.
Kenyan forces in Somalia
Kenya first sent forces into Somalia in 2011 to fight the Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants and is now a major contributor of forces to an African Union (AU) military operation against the outfit.
But the country has suffered a series of retaliatory attacks, including a siege at the Westgate mall in the capital Nairobi in 2013 that cost sixty-seven lives and an assault on Garissa University in 2015 that claimed 148 lives.
In Somalia, the group has continued to carry out deadly attacks despite a strong offensive launched last August by pro-government troops, supported by the AU force known as ATMIS.
In one of the worst latest attacks, fifty-four Ugandan peacekeepers were killed when Al-Shabaab militants attacked an African Union base in Somalia on 26 May, according to Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni.
And on Saturday, Somali police said that 6 civilians were killed in a 6-hour siege by the militants at a beachside hotel in Mogadishu.
