Three people suspected of being « terrorists » have been arrested for trying to enter a British military camp in central Kenya, according to a police report seen by the AFP on Monday.
The three were arrested Sunday afternoon, hours after a shebab attack on a US-Kenyan base on the coast of the southeastern Lamu region in which three Americans were killed.
The police « arrested three terror suspects who had earlier tried unsuccessfully to break into the British military camp, » the report said.
The suspects were spotted on remote surveillance images and arrested in Nanyuki City. « The three suspects are being interrogated to find out what their motivations are, » said Rift Valley province police chief Marcus Ochola.
They were unarmed, he said.
Kenyan police have been on alert since fighters from the Somali Islamist Shebab group attacked a US-Kenyan military base in Lamu, southeast Kenya, near the border with Somalia, on Sunday.
Three Americans – a soldier and two Pentagon contractors – were killed and several planes destroyed.
The Shebab carried out several large-scale attacks inside Kenya, claiming that it was retaliation for sending Kenyan soldiers to Somalia in 2011 to fight them, as well as targeting foreign interests.
The shebab attacks show their ability to inflict significant damage in the region, despite the loss of control of the main urban areas of Somalia.
Driven from Mogadishu in 2011, they lost most of their strongholds. But they still control large rural areas from where they organize guerrilla warfare and suicide bombings. It is estimated that there are currently between 5,000 and 9,000 combatants.
In a report released in November, a UN panel on Somalia highlighted the “unprecedented number” of homemade bombs and other attacks on the Kenya-Somalia border in June and July 2019.
At least three people were killed on Thursday when men suspected of being Shebab ambushed a bus traveling around the area.
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