Al-Shabab bombing in Somali capital kills five, injures six
8 Kenyan security officers perish in attacks
in an attack on my convoy,” Mandera Governor Ali Roba said in a Facebook post.
Al-Shabab claimed both that attack and an earlier one further south in Liboi, also close to the border.
There, three policemen were killed when their truck hit an improvised explosive device (IED), North Eastern regional commissioner Mohamud Ali Saleh told Reuters.
“All the dead officers are from one work station,” he said. “From past incidences, it is easy to see that even this one is the work of our enemy, Al-Shabab. They plant these IEDs to target our security people.”
The Kenyan Red Cross tweeted that another eight officers had been wounded.
Al-Shabab’s military operation spokesman, told Reuters: “This afternoon, we attacked the convoy of Ali Roba, Mandera county chief, with a roadside bomb. We killed five of his bodyguards and destroyed one car.”
He also claimed the Liboi attack for Al-Shabab: “We destroyed the police car. Some died and others were injured.”
Garissa county, where the Liboi incident happened, has suffered several Al-Shabab attacks in recent years, including an assault on a university in 2015 that killed 148 people.
Adding to the violence, a small militant group in the north of Somalia has split from the main insurgency and declared allegiance to Daesh. That group claimed responsibility for a bombing in the northern city of Bosasso that killed five people on Tuesday.
Somalia has been mired in civil war since 1991. It is also suffering from a regional drought that threatens to tip its population of 12 million into famine.