Grenade attack wounds six near Kenyan-Somali border

NAIROBI — Six people were wounded in Kenya on Saturday when a grenade exploded in a bar in a town bordering Somalia, the latest such attack since Nairobi sent troops into its war-torn neighbour, police said.

“An explosion has occurred in a bar in Wajir. Six people have been wounded,” a senior police officer in the region said, requesting anonymity.

“No prime suspect has been arrested but a major security operation is under way,” he said.

It marked the latest such attack near the border with Somalia, into which Nairobi sent troops and tanks in mid-October to fight Islamist insurgents whom it accuses of staging a series of attacks and kidnappings on Kenyan soil.

On Monday one police officer was killed and two others seriously injured after a suspected landmine attack on their patrol vehicle in the northern Dadaab refugee camp near the Somali border.

On November 24, two grenade attacks in the eastern town of Garissa close to the border with Somalia killed three people and injured 27.

The Kenyan authorities have blamed the attacks on sympathisers of the Al-Shebab Islamist insurgents who control large areas of central and southern Somalia.

AFP