Eight Killed in Suspected Al-Shabaab Ambush in Kenya's Mandera County: Road Workers and Police Reservists Among the Dead
An ambush in Mandera County in northeastern Kenya early on Nov. 10 killed eight people: Reuters, citing Kenyan police and a senior regional official, reported that suspected Somali al-Shabaab militants opened fire at about 7 a.m. near Hagarsu, along the Arabia-Lafey road close to the Somali border, on a vehicle escorting a road construction team. All eight occupants were killed, among them five road construction workers, two National Police Reservists and the driver.
Preliminary police reports said the attack happened at Koromey, about eight kilometres south of Arabia Police Station, as the team travelled to a road project run by the Kenya Rural Roads Authority. Seven people died at the scene, and the driver, critically wounded, died while being taken to Mandera County Teaching and Referral Hospital, where the bodies were later moved. Mandera County Police Commander Robinson Ndiwa confirmed the attack and said additional security personnel had been deployed to pursue the attackers and secure the area.
Regional official John Odhiambo Otieno said the armed assailants were believed to have crossed the nearby border from Somalia, and that investigations were under way to identify them. Mandera Governor Mohamed Adan Khalif condemned the attack as a devastating loss for the victims' families. No group had publicly claimed responsibility for the ambush at the time of reporting.
Al-Shabaab, which controls large areas of Somalia, frequently carries out cross-border attacks on Kenyan military and civilian targets, and construction crews, quarry workers and security forces in the Mandera border area have been attacked repeatedly. On Nov. 7, suspected militants also attacked a police station and a multi-agency security camp at Hulugho in neighbouring Garissa County, adding to the security strain along Kenya's northeastern border.
(Source: Reuters)
Source: Reuters
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：肯尼亚首都内罗毕市景资料图（事发地为东北部曼德拉县，非事发现场）。本站档案图复用。 / Photo: File photo of Nairobi, Kenya's capital (the attack took place in Mandera County in the northeast; not the scene). GSM archive image reused.
