Kenya’s counter-terrorism police unit announced that its special forces conducted intelligence-led operations on the border with Somalia, destroying two al-Shabab makeshift camps.
The operation, carried out by the Special Operations Group, Kenya’s elite counter-terrorism unit, led to the recovery of materials for the making of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including detonators, switches, IED cylinders and sodium nitrates. The unit said these materials were intended for use in attacks across the northern region.
“The camps on the Kenya-Somalia border were established as IED assembly camps and were to be used to attack and disrupt civil transport and commercial activities on our major roads linking Garissa and Lamu counties,” the unit stated in a press release on Tuesday evening.
Al-Shabab extremists abandoned the camps, leaving behind IED-making materials, bullets, communication gadgets and assorted ammunitions for hand-held rocket launchers, the statement said.
Since the Kenyan military crossed into Somalia in 2011 to help fight al-Shabab, several attacks believed to have been carried out by the group have occurred in Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa counties in northeastern Kenya.
