Thursday, June 21, 2007
Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said more regular and paramilitary forces have been deployed along the common frontier to repulse heavily armed Somali militiamen who attempted to cross into the country on Tuesday.
Kiraithe said that heavily armed security forces are patrolling the Kenyan northern town of Mandera near the border with Somalia after the militia from Somalia's Bula Hawa town tried to force their way into Kenya by opening fire at policemen manning the border point.
"Security has been intensified at the Kenya-Somali border to keep away the militia men following the incidents on Tuesday which saw the militiamen force their way into Kenya," Kiraithe told Xinhua by telephone.
"There was a fierce gun fight when the militia came into contact with our officers, during which one of the militia men was killed," said Kiraithe.
He said security would remain tight at the common border until the situation returns to normal.
Kiraithe said the shootout between Kenyan security and Somali militiamen took place near a place where two Kenyan policemen were found murdered.
The local authorities believe they had been kidnapped by Islamist fighters along the remote frontier, where tensions are running high over the arrest of scores of suspected Somali Islamists trying to enter Kenya after they were routed from Mogadishu in January by allied Somali-Ethiopian troops.
Kiraithe said investigations into the murder of the two policemen are still going on, adding that no prime suspect has been arrested so far.
Source: Xinhua, June 21, 2007