Al-Qaeda linked terror group attacks Kenya airfield, one US service member and two American contractors dead
Two Department of Defense members were also wounded and have been evacuated.
Kenyan police arrested three men on Sunday for trying to break into a British Army training camp around the same time that al-Shabab extremists attacked a military base and killed three U.S. military personnel.
The trio was being treated as terrorism suspects after attempting to enter the British Army Training Unit in Laikipia in central Kenya, according to an internal police report obtained by The Associated Press.
KENYA ATTACK BY AL-SHABAB MILITANTS KILLS US SERVICEMEMBER, 2 AMERICAN CONTRACTORS
The men, described as Kenyans, did not possess any weapons while trying to access the gate, police officials told Kenyan daily The Star. Police said the men were being questioned by the Anti-Terror Police Unit, without giving further details.
The British Army Training Unit is located in Laikipia county in central Kenya. (Reuters, File)
A fourth man, described as a Somali-Canadian, was arrested around the same time while taking photographs of the Kenya Air Force Base in Eastleigh, located over 100 miles to the south just outside of Nairobi, police officials told the paper. Police said that the Anti-Terror Police Unit will also interrogate him.
It was unclear whether the separate arrests were linked to one another or to the extremist attack.
4 KILLED IN KENYAN BUS ATTACK CLAIMED BY ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS
The arrests occurred around the same time that militants from Al Qaeda-linked terror group al-Shabab attacked the Kenya Defense Force Military Base in Lamu in eastern Kenya.
A U.S. servicemember and two American contractors died during the hours-long pre-dawn assault. Five militants were killed, Kenyan military officials said, adding that no Kenyans died in the attack.
The U.S. Africa Command said Monday that five U.S. aircraft were destroyed and one suffered damaged at the Manda Bay Airfield. The aircraft were a combination of fixed-wing and rotary, it said.
The attack did not appear to be in response to growing tensions in the Middle East following the U.S.-led airstrike at Baghdad International Airport that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) elite Quds Force, early Friday.
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Al-Shabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for its troop presence in neighboring Somalia to counter the extremist group.
Fox News' Vandana Rambaran and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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