A suspected member of Somali extremist group Al-Shabab detonated an explosive device that killed two people at their home in a western Kenyan vil-lage and himself, police said, outside the group’s usual of area of operations.
If the affiliation between the suspect and the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab is confirmed, it will under-score the group’s push to recruit members of more diverse backgrounds to carry out attacks over wider territory.
Al Shabab is fighting to overthrow Somalia’s cen-tral government and regularly launches attacks in Kenya to the west in retaliation for Kenya contribut-ing troops to an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.
But this attack was in the far west of Kenya, hun-dreds of kilometers from the Somali border.
Police said the attacker went into a home in Kam-loma village in Kisumu County late on Tuesday and questioned a mother, father and daughter. “
The Al-Shabab suspect started questioning them on things they didn’t understand. Suddenly an impro-vised explosive device he was carrying exploded, killing the suspect,” police said in a report.Only the daughter, who was seriously wounded, survived, police said.—AP