Several dead after bus explosion in Mandera

By Standard Reporters and Agencies

Eight people have been killed in a grenade attack on a bus in Mandera town, North-eastern Kenya by suspected al shabaab militia.

The militia are said to have sprayed the bus ferrying KCSE exam papers with bullets before lobbing a grenade that instantaneously exploded killing all on board. Those killed include Lafey secondary school headmaster, the district education officer, and two Kenya police reserve among others. The attack happened 100 kilometres from Mandera town.

This is the third grenade attack in the past five days bringing the death toll in suspected al shabaab related attacks to 9.

"We have received a report of a banditry attack in Mandera District about 110 km from Mandera town involving a vehicle carrying government officials among others," police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said.

Kiraithe said the District Police Commander and his security team were proceeding to the scene of the attack.

Mandera is in Kenya's sparsely populated far northeast, close to the porous borders with Ethiopia and Somalia. Kenyan troops deployed into anarchic Somalia 12 days ago in an offensive against al-Shabaab militants blamed for a series of kidnappings on Kenyan soil and frequent cross-border incursions.

Al Shabaab had warned it would strike back.

Two separate grenade attacks in the capital Nairobi on October 24, killed one person and wounded more than 20. A Kenyan man pleaded guilty on October 26 to one of the attacks and being a member of al Shabaab, the Somali Islamist group.