Somali Militants Attack Kenyan Police Station

Posted by African Examiner African News, East/Central Africa, Latest Headlines Thursday, September 22nd, 2016

Al-Shabab militants say they have attacked a police station in northeastern Kenya near the border with Somalia.

Kenyan authorities said fighters from Somalia carried out the cross-border attack early Thursday on a police station at Hameey Village.

A statement from police spokesman George Kinoti said the militants traveling in two Land Cruisers attacked the patrol base “but the officers in the camp managed to repulse them amid [a] fierce exchange of fire.”

He said two of the policemen at the station were missing, one was wounded and he reported one of the attackers was killed.

Local residents told VOA Somali on condition of anonymity that the militants fought with the police for more than 30 minutes, using machine guns and rocket propelled grenades.

One resident told a VOA stringer in the region over the phone, they “… saw one dead militant lying at the front gate of the attacked police station and two injured Kenyan police officers.”

The attacked Kenyan police station is located at Kenya’s Garissa County and just 10 kilometers from Hosingow village, Somalia.

A village elder in Hosingow, Aden Gamaan said the militants were seen Tuesday sneaking from the Somali border into Kenya.

Radio Andalus, al-Shabab’s mouthpiece in Somalia aired a statement saying al-Shabab attacked a police station in a small town near Garissa. It said the militants looted a police vehicle and inflicted human and property loses.”

He did not say anything about the two missing Kenyan police officers.

Al-Shabab has vowed to continue attacks across the border in retaliation for Kenya’s military operations in southern Somalia. Kenya sent troops to Somalia in 2011 to help the African Union combat al-Shabab.

A week ago, the militants briefly captured El Wak, a key Somali town near the border with Kenya, killing at least four people including a government commander.

VOA