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MANDERA. — At least one person was killed and two others wounded after they were attacked by armed gunmen on Wednesday night in Mandera town near the border with Somalia.Mandera County Commissioner Alex Ole Nkoyo said the three were attacked by suspected Al-Shabaab militia who crossed into the country from Somalia’s Bula Hawa.

“There is a little tension in town because all the victims of the attack are non locals and we have information that Al-Shabaab have been planning attacks in the same town.

“There is also a few militia who are determined to divide people along religions and tribes,” Nkoyo said yesterday.

Nkoyo said all the three are masons working with a contractor who is building the Mandera Stadium courtesy of the County Government.

“These three men were walking home from a hotel where they always have super but were shot from behind by three gunmen who had been trailing them, wounding the two and killing one,” Nkoyo said.

He said the police on patrol responded to gunshots but were unable to arrest any suspected as the attackers were said to have disappeared into the estates in town.

“No one has been arrested so far but the CID has taken up the matter and very soon we shall know the motive of shooting and who did it,” Nkoyo said.

He appealed to the public to volunteer information to help in arresting the suspects and report any suspicious persons to the police.

Mandera County was the scene of vicious attack late last year where over 28 of non locals were killed in a Nairobi-bound commuter bus and at a quarry site.

Al-Shabaab militants later claimed responsibility for the massacre in which they said was in retaliation for the mistreatment of Muslims and raids on mosques in the coastal city of Mombasa.

The county and other parts of northern Kenya have been subjected to successive explosive attacks

by Al-Shabaab operatives following the onslaught by Kenyan soldiers on the Al-Shabaab in Somalia since 2011. — Xinhua.