At least two police officers and a teacher were on Friday killed after Al Shabaab terrorists overran Wargadud police station in Mandera County, police have said.
The terrorists also attacked and destroyed communication masts in the town affecting communication. They also made away with a police Landcruiser and an unknown amount of ammunition.
The gang also burnt at least two cars in the town after overrunning the station forcing most of the officers who were present to scamper for safety.
The affected station is in Elwak, which is more than 50 kilometers away from the porous Kenya-Somalia border.
Locals and police said the attack took place in the wee hours of Friday morning. A military response team that tried to intervene was attacked with bombs at their camp in Elwak.
The deceased teacher, the police said, was a non local.
The attack came hours after the terrorists overran and took control of a camp that had been handed over by the Kenya Defence Forces troops in Somalia in Geriley, not far from El-Wak, in Gedo region of Somalia on Thursday. Kenyan troops launched a counter operation and killed five terrorists who were in a technical vehicle.
In the Elele area, Mandera, military’s special forces destroyed an al Shabaab camp that they had assembled to use for more attacks, officials said.
Over in Lamu, one suspected terrorist was killed by multi-agency teams.
On Thursday, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki visited nearly two dozen police officers who are recuperating in various hospitals in Nairobi after sustaining injuries in the line of duty and said the security agencies had killed more than 150 terrorists in the recent past.
“Despite the setback of death and injury of a few of our frontline security officers, we have made tremendous pushback in the process of which our gallant and patriotic officers have neutralised over 150 terrorists who have been launching attacks on civilians and security agencies in the forward operating bases in North Eastern and Upper Coast regions,” he said.
The recent attacks have forced the government to suspend plans to reopen the Kenya-Somalia border. Kindiki said this follows an increase of terror related attacks along the Kenya-Somalia border in the past months.
“The Government will delay the planned reopening of Kenya-Somalia border points until we conclusively deal with the recent spate of terror attacks and cross-border crime.”
“We have postponed the plans to reopen the main borders in Mandera, Wajir, here Liboi and Kiunga due to the increased attacks by the terrorists in the past months. We will deal with them first then continue with the plans,” he added.
The terrorists have been attacking areas near the Kenyan border by using guns and explosives.
