Sunday, 15 March 2015

SUSPECTED AL-SHABAAB KILLS ONE, WOUNDS 3 IN MANDERA RAID



BY ADOW JUBAT

Suspected al-Shabaab militia killed one person and injured three others in another attack in North-Eastern border town of Mandera on Sunday evening.

The assailants who drove in small car pull their gun trigger from an arm stretch at a group of shoppers buying items at a shot at Bulla-Mpya suburb on the outskirts of Mandera town at 8.15 pm East Africa time.

Confirming the incident the Mandera East deputy County commissioner Elvis Korir said unknown number of gun men believed to be members of terror group al-Shabaab based in adjacent war-torn Somalia raided a shop with indiscriminate shot outs.

“The assailants open fire at a group of shoppers killing one man instantly, while at the same time critically injuring three others”, He said speaking on the incident on phone from Mandera Frontier Leaks.

He added “Preliminary information provided to us indicates that the gun men drove in a probox vehicle near to the shop before starting shooting the victims from a close range and then escaped toward the less than a kilometer neighboring Somalia using the same car”,

This is the latest terror attack in Mandera, which comes barely two days after a deadly attack on a convoy of Mandera Governor Ali Roba, which left three people- two security officers and a former civic leader dead and eight other seriously wounded.

The Islamist group has carried series of deadly attacks in Kenya’s North-Eastern and other towns including the capital city of Nairobi since the East African country sent its military into Somalia to crush the Al-Qaeda inspired group, which has been blamed by the Kenyan authorities of been behind spates of kidnapping of expatriate aid working in the sprawling refugee camps in the incursion prone Northern region and tourists in the coastal archipelago towns of Mombasa and Lamu.

Al-Shabaab has vowed to press on with its deadly attacks on Kenya’s strategic interests until the country surrenders by pulling out from Somalia; however, Kenya’s leadership who has the constitutionally mandate of the its military pull out has repeatedly said it will not withdraw its forces from Somalia any time soon.

Korir said those injured in the dusk incident were rushed to Mandera referral hospital, where they are undergoing treatment for the gun wounds sustained in the terror attack.

“Our combined security officers are combing the area for the escaping assailants and we are hoping to catch up with them before they managed to cross the porous border into Somalia”, He noted.

The deputy county commissioner said the investigations on the motives of the attacks and the identity of the attackers is on ongoing since the attacks just happened some few hours ago.



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