Saturday, October 20, 2012
GARISSA, Kenya, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- A police officer has been injured in the latest grenade attack in Garissa town near Kenya's northern border with Somalia.
Garissa County Commissioner Maalim Mohammed confirmed the development on Saturday, saying unknown terrorists lobbed an improvised explosive devise (IED) on Friday evening inside an Administration Police camp in Garissa, injuring the security officer on the legs and hands.
"The incident which took place at the fall of darkness on Friday was targeting Administration Police Officers manning the camp at night," Mohammed told Xinhua.
He said the injured police officer was rushed to a local hospital where he said to be out of danger.
The government administrator linked the attack to the Al-Qaida linked terror group of Al-Shabaab who have been behind a string of bomb and grenade attacks in the region, saying police have launched investigations to apprehend the attackers.
"The police have launched the investigations to arrest those behind the Friday evening attack on our officers," Mohammed said and urged local residents not to panic over the incident.
Northern Kenya particularly Garissa County has of late witnessed a spate of grenade and gun attack on innocent Kenyans, refugees and the police over the past two weeks which are seen as retaliatory attacks from the embattled Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia since the capture of the port cit of Kismayo.
More than 20 security officers and scores of civilians have been killed, many maimed and property worth millions of dollars were destroyed in Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Nairobi and Mombasa since the Kenyan soldiers entered Somalia in bid to forestall dangers facing from threats of Al-Qaeda linked Somali Islamist Group, Al-Shabaab.
Kenya says the deployment of her troops in the southern regions have so far helped to prevent the movement of explosives to the strategic towns of Husingo and Badhade, the conduit points for the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), the counterfeit electronics and contraband sugar smuggling across the region.
Military officials said these regions are crucial to the stabilization of Kenya's coastal and northeastern provinces, which have been targeted by attackers preying on soft civilian targets.