Three police officers killed in northern Kenya bomb attack

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  Three Kenyan police officers were killed on Wednesday morning when their vehicle hit a homemade bomb on a road near the Somali border in the northeast of the country.

The vehicle was driving towards the regional town of Garissa when it struck the device close to the Liboi border post.

“They all died on the spot after their vehicle hit an Improvised Explosive Device,” said a regional police officer, on condition of anonymity.

Police spokesman George Kinoti confirmed the incident, saying: “There was an attack this morning and we lost officers.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Kenya’s eastern border with Somalia is notoriously restive and prone to attacks staged by Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militants.

The attack came a day after police warned of increased Islamist activity in the area.

Islamic militants “are dispatching operatives into parts of north eastern region to lay IEDs along routes used by our security patrols in efforts to frustrate our security operations at the border areas,” the police statement said.

The Shabaab is fighting to overthrow the internationally-backed government in Mogadishu but began attacking Kenya in 2011 after Nairobi ordered its troops into Somalia to fight the militants.