Kenyan authorities say a suspected suicide bomber killed himself and two others Tuesday in Kisumu County, on the border with Uganda. Police say the suspect was a member of the Somalia-based al-Shabab terrorist group.
The suspect detonated explosives Tuesday night, killing two people and injuring one in Kamloma village in western Kenya.
“While he was talking to the neighbor, the IED went off killing him instantly and the wife of the neighbor and also injured the neighbor and the daughter. The neighbor died on his way to the hospital. The daughter is admitted to hospital but in stable condition,” Kisumu County Police Commander Richard Ngeno said.
So far, police have not established a motive for the attack.
The area assistant police chief, James Okoth, told VOA that suspect John Ondiek was spotted in the area Tuesday after being away for several months.
He said Ondiek came home around August last year, built a home, and moved to the Katito area.
The suspect had previously lived in the coastal city of Mombasa.
Kenyan media report the attacker was radicalized there and later joined Somali militant group al-Shabab.
Late last year, the suspect allegedly tried to kill his girlfriend in the Katito area. Police say a bomb he assembled inside the house injured the woman.
Until now, western Kenya has seen no terrorist incidents, unlike Nairobi, the coast and northeastern regions.
Nairobi-based security expert Richard Tuta said a terrorist could operate anywhere.
“We cannot confine terrorism to a particular jurisdiction and if you want to confine it to a particular jurisdiction, then you will be wrong because that’s the point of departure between terrorist and insurgency because the insurgency has a physical location you can locate them to but terrorism defies country, county and regional boundary,” he said.
For more than a decade, al-Shabab has recruited Kenyan youths to bolster its ranks and carry out attacks against targets in Kenya, which stations troops in Somalia to support the Mogadishu government.
Source: Voice of America