Terror suspect dies in Garissa IED explosion

By CAPITAL REPORTER | May 30, 2013

The incident occurred at about 9 pm outside the Garissa Provincial General Hospital/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 30 – A terror suspect was killed in Garissa on Wednesday night when an improvised bomb he was assembling went off, police have said.

The incident occurred at about 9pm outside the Garissa Provincial General Hospital.
“A loud explosion was heard at night but no one was able to establish what exactly happened at that time until this morning when the badly damaged body was found,” a police officer explained.

Police added that they had reason to believe the slain man was carrying the explosive device due to the nature of the injuries he sustained together with the items found at the scene.

There has been an increased level of insecurity at the border town with at least two attacks reported weekly.

The latest attack occurred at the weekend when Al Shabaab attackers raided two police posts in Liboi, killing six people among them two Administration Police officers.

Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo said the attackers struck two AP camps at about 5.30 p.m. killing a minor, two APs and three civilians including a Kenya Red Cross official.

The attacks at Abdi Sugow and Damajaly AP camps left another policeman and a chief wounded.

Two police officers are yet to be traced after they were kidnapped during the attack.

“We are doing everything possible to get the officers. They have not been seen since the attack occurred,” Kimaiyo told a news conference in Nairobi earlier this week.

The Liboi attack followed another which occurred in Mandera where a militia group crossed over from Ethiopia leaving five people dead.

Kenya has been hit by a wave of grenade and gun attacks that are often blamed on sympathisers of Somalia’s Shabaab Islamist fighters, since the army invaded Somalia in 2011 to attack the Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents.

Kenyan troops remain in southern Somalia but have since been integrated into the African Union force.

However, they are working closely with a local Somali militia commander, whose control over southern Somalia’s Jubaland area is fiercely opposed by rival Somali forces as well as the central government in Mogadishu.