Five dead in New Year blast in Garissa
NAIROBI,Kenya Jan 1,2012 (AFP) – Five people were killed Saturday night in a blast in a bar in the eastern Kenyan town of Garissa, close to the border with Somalia, police officers said.
“There was an explosion in a club in town shortly before midnight and five people died,” a senior police officer at north eastern provincial headquarters told AFP, asking not to be named.
“After the explosion in the club there was shooting outside and people were running all over. It appears they targetted New Year celebrations,” the officer added.
Regional police chief Leo Nyongesa confirmed an attack took place.
“We are investigating. We are looking for the attackers,” he told AFP by telephone from Garissa.
The predominantly Muslim town, the capital of Northeast province, lies just 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Somali border and 70 kilometres from Dadaab, a complex of Somali refugee camps.
Nairobi sent troops and tanks into neighbouring Somalia in mid-October to fight Islamist insurgents who it accuses of staging a series of attacks on Kenyan soil.
Since the deployment, the northeast of the country has been the focus for a series of attacks blamed by Kenyan authorities on sympathisers of the Shabaab Islamist insurgency which controls large areas of central and southern Somalia.
