Blast near Somalia border kills 5 Kenyan soldiers

LIBOI, Kenya - At least five Kenyan police officers were reported to have been killed in an Al Shabaab attack in Liboi on the Kenyan-Somali border.

Police said those killed are General Service Unit officers whose vehicle was blown up after driving over an Improvised Explosive Device.

Dadaab Deputy County Commissioner Harun Kamau indicated that more officers have been deployed to the area to search for the attackers.

Since 2007, Al Shabaab has fought to overthrow successive internationally-backed governments in Mogadishu but only began attacking Kenya in 2011 after Nairobi ordered its troops into Somalia to fight the militants.

Kenyan soldiers are now part of a 22,000-strong African Union mission fighting in Somalia.

In 2013, Al Shabaab gunmen raided a shopping mall in the capital Nairobi killing 67 people, and in 2015 a similar attack on a university in Garissa left 148 dead.