Al-Shabaab militants kill police and civilian in Kenya

Al-Shabaab fighters attacked a police vehicle in eastern Kenya, killing two officers and one civilian, police and the armed group said.

The truck was travelling from Hayley Lapsset camp to Garissa town, about 120km from the Somalian border, when it hit an explosive device, police said in a statement on Wednesday.

The militants then fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the vehicle and engaged in a heavy firefight that took the lives of the victims, police said.

Al-Shabaab’s Radio Andalus said in a broadcast that their gunmen killed two Kenyan security forces and injured several others in the attack.

The group killed 166 people at Garissa University in 2015, and 67 at a mall in Nairobi in 2013, but the frequency and severity of al-Shabaab attacks in Kenya have reduced in the past few years.

The group continues to make cross-border raids as part of its campaign to pressure Kenya into withdrawing its forces from Somalia, who make up part of an African Union-mandated peacekeeping force.

Images shared by the police showed a burned-out truck and a body lying in the sand.

Police said they had little information on the whereabouts of other police officers traveling in the vehicle.

Al-Shabaab has been under pressure since August when Somalian President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud began a US-backed offensive against the group.

Source: taipeitimes