At least three Kenyan students and a teacher were killed, and four more people injured when suspected al-Shabab terrorists attacked a primary school in Garissa county, near the border with Somalia. The Kenyan military says its forces killed two of the attackers as they tried to blow up a telecommunications tower.
Kenyan police say al-Shabaab terrorists attacked Saretho Primary School in a remote village in Garissa County early Tuesday morning.
Police spokesman Charles Owino provided details.
“About 12 al-Shabab attackers attacked an area called Saretho. Saretho is within Dadaab sub-county in Garissa county 25 kilometers from Dadaab center. They killed a teacher and three other persons, a total of four people.”
Owino said security officers fought off the attackers as they then tried to destroy a telecommunications tower with improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
“They attempted to destroy the telecommunication of Safaricom mast around that place. [An] officer who was on patrol caught up with them, shot and killed two of them, and we recovered two AK-47 rifles and some IEDs they had planted at the telecommunication area,” Owino said.
Al-Shabab militants frequently launch attacks in northeastern Kenya, near the border with Somalia.
The Islamist group wants Kenyan troops to leave Somalia, where they have been helping African Union forces battle the militants.
On Sunday, the Islamist group attacked a military base in Lamu, Kenya, that hosts U.S. and Kenyan counterterrorism forces, killing three U.S. personnel and damaging several aircraft.
In one of the worst attacks, in 2015, al-Shabab gunmen stormed Garissa University, killing 148 people, most of them students.
