Dozens of passengers who were travelling in two buses in Mandera on Tuesday December 15, 2015 escaped narrowly after an attack was launched on police officers escorting the buses from Elwak to Mandera town.
The 12 armed police officers were escorting the buses as has been norm for public service vehicles in the area since the November 2014 bus attack that left 28 dead.
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According to Mandera County Commissioner Fredrick Shisia, the officers engaged the Al-Shabaab militants in a fire exchange following the ambush.
He said that the attackers were overpowered and escaped into a hideout, where police are hunting them down, according to a Daily Nation report.
Shisia noted that the attack targeting security agents, together with the Sunday December 13 one that left a KDF military officer dead, seems to be a revenge mission.
This after a woman (Isnina Mohammed), who the government said was a former Al-Shabaab cook, was found mysteriously killed and buried on Sunday December 6.
Area MCA Ahmed Ibrahim told Daily Nation that shortly after the December 13 attack on a military convoy, a group of between 15 to 20 armed men descended on Buke village in Mandera at about 3pm and hoisted a flag before lecturing residents for two hours.
“The armed terrorists who held villagers hostage for two hours before returning into the bush at around 5pm, left a message that no one should inform the government of their presence,” said the MCA, speaking at the Red Sea Hotel in Mandera town.
He added that most of the government administrators, including chiefs and their assistants, had fled the area fearing for their lives.
The police commissioner Shisia said that they have deployed security agents to seal off the Elwak point that is currently allowing Al-Shabaab easy access into Kenya through Mandera, hence the increasing terror incidents.
“Somalia security agents have left a certain corridor open due to challenges they are facing back there and it has created an opening for Al-Shabaab to get easy access into Kenya but we are sealing off the Elwak point,” he said.
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