Ali Sheikh
Garissa.
Two officers from Kenya’s Border Patrol Unit were killed and five others critically injured on Wednesday after their patrol vehicle struck an improvised explosive device (IED) planted by suspected Al-Shabaab militants along the Liboi–Kulan road in Garissa County.
The attack occurred near the porous Kenya–Somalia border, an area long vulnerable to cross-border militant incursions.
Police said the Border Patrol Unit’s Land Cruiser was on routine patrol when militants remotely detonated the explosive, shredding the vehicle, flipping it onto its side, and setting it ablaze.
One officer died on the spot, while the second succumbed to his injuries while being evacuated. The five survivors were rushed to a nearby facility with serious wounds; their conditions remain undisclosed.
Security officials described the explosion as a coordinated ambush by Al-Shabaab operatives who continue to exploit the region’s rough terrain and limited infrastructure to execute roadside bombings targeting Kenyan forces.
Additional security units were immediately deployed to secure the area, conduct a sweep for secondary devices, and pursue the attackers.
Although no group has claimed responsibility, authorities say the attack bears the hallmarks of Somalia-based Al-Shabaab.
The incident punctuates a resurgence of violence in Garissa after several months of relative calm following intensified counterterrorism operations.
In October 2025, Kenya’s elite Special Operations Group disrupted a similar plot in the Welmerer–Yumbis area, where officers intercepted eight suspected militants assembling IEDs based on community intelligence. The suspects escaped during a brief firefight, but the recovered explosives were safely destroyed.
Earlier, in May 2025, three officers were injured in another roadside blast when their vehicle hit a prematurely triggered device on a Dadaab road.
Kenya has faced persistent Al-Shabaab attacks since deploying troops to Somalia in 2011 under the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS). Garissa, Mandera, and Wajir counties continue to bear the brunt of these cross-border assaults, with roadside IEDs alone claiming dozens of security officers’ lives over the past decade.