'Al-Shabaab' militants raid AP camp in Arabia, Mandera

Suspected Al shabaab militants attack Arabia AP Camp in Mandera

What you need to know:

  • The attack came days after Inspector-General of police Joseph Boinnet together with his key lieutenants visited officers in camps in the area.

Suspected Al-Shabaab militants have attacked an Administration Police camp in Mandera.

Over 20 gunmen are said to have raided the camp in Arabia at 1.25am on Thursday.

Some 21 officers were in the camp when the attack happened, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery said in Nairobi.

“We have lost no officer but one student was hit by a stray bullet during the incident from their family house,” Lafey Deputy County Commissioner Eric Oronyi said.

BVR KIT STOLEN

Speaking to the Nation by phone, Mr Oronyi said the attackers made away with a police vehicle, a motorcycle, three rifles, bullets and four voter registration kits belonging to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

“Preliminary information is showing they destroyed a Safaricom mast before attacking the AP camp and made away with a Toyota Land Cruiser belonging to police,” Mr Oronyi said.

“The police officers took cover and the attackers made away with their personal belongings, including clothes and other things the officers left behind,” he said, adding that the militants set alight mattresses to scare away the officers.

Two of the guns were assigned to national police reservists while one belonged to an AP officer.

COMMUNICATION CUTOFF

The gunmen vandalised a Safaricom mast in Khoror Farar and mobile communication has been cut off in the area.

Reinforcements from the Kenya Defence Forces in Mandera were dispatched to the area on Thursday morning.

The injured student was admitted to Mandera County Referral Hospital in a critical condition after a bullet went through his head.

KULBIYOW ATTACK

The county chief said the situation was still being assessed by security agents on the ground.

“We have a contingent of police on the ground together with military and we shall be getting more information once they reach to an area with network,” he said.

The attack came days after Police Inspector-General Joseph Boinnet and his key lieutenants visited officers in camps in the area.

It also happened barely a week after Al-Shabaab killed nine Kenyan soldiers in a camp in Kulbiyow, Lower Jubba, Somalia, some 18 kilometres from the Kenyan border.

100 TROOPS

The number of soldiers killed in the attack is, however, disputed, with Al-Shabaab putting it at over 60.

On the dawn of January 15, 2016, Kenya also lost over 100 soldiers when Al-Shabaab overran a KDF camp in El-Adde, Somalia.

Kenyan soldiers are fighting the rag-tag militia under the UN-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) that has lost hundreds of soldiers in camp attacks.

Amisom is a 22,000-strong force comprising soldiers from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.      

John Njagi contributed to this report from Nairobi.