Kenyan jets patrol Somali border after Attack

[Jacaylbaro]

NAIROBI, June 3 (Reuters) - Kenyan war planes and military helicopters flew over the border with Somalia on Tuesday, close to where suspected Somali Islamist insurgents attacked Kenyan police on Saturday, residents said.

 

Locals said the militants who launched the raid in Dadajabula belonged to Somalia's al Shabaab group, which the United States has listed as a terrorist organisation suspected of having close ties with al Qaeda.

 

"Kenyan fighter jets and choppers are flying over us ... The town is tense," Hussein Gure, a resident of Doble, just across the border in Somalia, told Reuters by telephone.

 

Gure said Somali elders from Kenya were urging the militants to hand over guns and a police truck they seized on Saturday.

 

"We don't know what will happen as there are so many Islamist fighters in town," he said. "Ordinary people are waving white clothes at the jets as a sign of peace, shouting 'We are innocent, please go after those who raided your station.'" Kenyan police in Dadajabula are holding suspects including two Britons of Somali extraction who entered Kenya illegally.

 

In June 2007, two Kenyan policemen kidnapped by militants were found murdered on the Somali border after the arrest of scores of suspected Somali Islamists trying to enter Kenya.