Roadside bomb kills Kenyan police near Somali border

A roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying 11 police officers near Kenya’s border with Somalia on Saturday, killing several of the them, the police spokesman said.

Charles Owino told Reuters he was still awaiting precise casualty figures.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Somali al Shabaab insurgents claimed responsibility on Friday for kidnapping three Kenyan police reservists from Wajir, in northeast Kenya near the Somali border.

“Last night, we captured a village called Konton in Wajir county. We left the village and took three Kenyan policemen with us,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s spokesman for military operations, told Reuters by phone.

Kenyan military forces have occupied part of southern Somalia along the two countries’ shared border since 2011.

The Kenyans, along with allied Somali militia, wrested back control of the territory from al Shabaab after a spate of kidnappings on Kenyan soil.