NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan officials said Saturday that a civilian was killed and several policemen wounded when a convoy was attacked. The Somalia-based extremist group al-Shabab is suspected.
Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said the police vehicles had been escorting buses between Mombasa city and Lamu County and were destroyed in the attack.
Kenya’s government is battling to stop a wave of attacks by al-Shabab fighters who say they are avenging Kenya’s deployment of troops to neighboring Somalia in 2011. Kenyan troops make up part of the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia that bolsters the country’s weak government against al-Shabab’s insurgency.
In the past two years, al-Shabab has focused attacks on Kenyan counties that border Somalia and mainly targeted security agents.
Kenya’s government ordered police to escort vehicles on the Lamu-Mombasa road after an al-Shabab attack last year in which a top government official was briefly kidnapped.
Separately, police said youths burned down a Catholic church in Marsabit County in northern Kenya after the arrest of a Muslim cleric accused by the government of radicalization.
In a statement, police said they arrested Guyo Gorsa, who allegedly had been involved in the recruitment of young people into al-Shabab.