Four Killed in Grenade Attack on Bus in Kenya Capital

Car damaged by bomb explosion. Four people were reportedly killed., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Four killed in grenade attack on bus in Kenya capital

At least four people have been killed in a suspected grenade attack on a minibus in Kenya's capital.

More than a dozen others were wounded on the 32-seat bus, which was travelling near a Somali-dominated area of Nairobi.

"So far I can confirm that four people have died in the explosion," said Nairobi county police commander Benson Kibui, without giving details.

Another police officer described it as a grenade attack.

A Reuters reporter at the scene in Pangani, an area next to Eastleigh which is home to many Somalis, saw a destroyed minibus and metal, glass and other debris on the street.

A car nearby was also damaged.

St John Ambulance reported on its Twitter account that 15 people were taken to one hospital and three died from their injuries.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The incident follows another grenade attack on a market in Wajir, in northeast Kenya near the Somali border.

In that attack, police said masked men hurled two grenades killing one person and injuring others.

It also mirrors explosions last year, where a series of similar attacks in and around the Eastleigh area of the city were blamed on Somalia's al Shabaab Islamist group.

The group staged an assault on a Nairobi shopping mall in September this year that killed 67 people.

Al Shabaab said its gunmen carried out the mall attack to force Kenya to withdraw troops from Somalia where they are part of an African peacekeeping mission battling with the Islamists.

AFP/Reuters


http://www.dawn.com/news/1073886/bombs-kill-one-in-kenya-near-somalia-border-police

Bombs kill one in Kenya near Somalia border: police

AFP
Published
2013-12-14 14:47:41

NAIROBI: At least one person was killed and three others seriously wounded when twin explosions rocked the Kenyan town of Wajir near the Somalia border, police said on Saturday.

The blasts ripped through the town market shortly after 8:00 pm Friday night, a senior police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“It looks like these were improvised explosive devices,” the officer said.

“We lost one person while three others were taken to hospital,” he added.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which police said was likely the work of Al Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents or their sympathisers.

The region along Kenya's 700-kilometre border with Somalia has seen a series of attacks, mainly on police but also against hotels and restaurants, since Kenya sent its troops to Somalia to fight the Shebab in October 2011 and authorities routinely blame the attacks on the rebels.

Wajir, which lies about 100 kilometres from the Somali border, has been the scene of many of such attacks.

In September, one person was killed and four wounded when a grenade was hurled inside a market.

In May, a Kenyan paramilitary officer was shot by unknown gunmen.

And in February a soldier was killed and three people, including two policemen, were wounded when a grenade was thrown at them.

The Shebab claimed responsibility for an attack in September on a shopping mall in Kenya's capital Nairobi, in retaliation for Kenya's military intervention in Somalia. At least 67 people died in the four-day siege.