Ambush At Kenyan Border Kills 12 People, Police Officers

Kenyan officials say Somali militants have killed 12 people, including three police reservists, during a border ambush, according to Reuters.

A spokesman for the militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for Monday's attack in northeast Kenya near its border with Somalia, Reuters reported.

David Kimaiyo, Kenya's top police chief, said the attack began when bandits shot at four vehicles transporting khat, a chewed stimulant popular throughout the region, according to Reuters.

Kimaiyo said police officers who responded to the attack drove into an ambush, Reuters reported. The National Disaster Operation Center said two police vehicles were destroyed.

Security fears are running high in Kenya because of al-Shabab's threat to attack Kenyan cities, according to Reuters. The United States, Britain, Australia and France all have issued security warnings to its citizens in Kenya in recent days.

Britain, the United States and other Western governments have warned holidaymakers against visiting Kenya, Reuters reported.

"Twelve individuals, among them three police reservists killed in Mandera County in an ambush by suspected al Shabaab militia on Monday afternoon," the government-run National Disaster Operations Centre said on its Twitter feed, according to Reuters.

Mandera County, near the border with Ethiopia and Somalia, has seen a marked escalation in tension, with low-key clan clashes displacing hundreds of people in the past year, Reuters reported.

The region is awash with guns due to its proximity to Somalia, where al Shabaab has been fighting to topple the government, and Ethiopia, where the armed Oromo Liberation Front has made incursions into the country, according to Reuters.

The NDOC was not immediately available for further comment about how the ambush happened or who else had been killed, Reuters reported.

Noah Mwivanda, Mandera County police commander, said police were searching for another seven people "missing in action" and that the attackers had also set fire to a van transporting qat, a plant chewed as a stimulant, according to Reuters.

"Two regular police, three reservists and two civilians are missing in action, an operation is being conducted to find them. They are either dead, abducted or missing," Mwivanda told Reuters.

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