Three women have been killed after they attacked a police station in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, a police official said Sunday.
One of the women threw a petrol bomb at officers while another pulled out a knife, Mombasa police chief Parterson Maelo said, adding two policemen were wounded in the attack.
The women, who were dressed in niqabs, were then shot by police.
Mr. Maelo said the women arrived at the central police station at about 10:30 a.m. to report a stolen telephone.
“While the officers were questioning them about the particulars of the stolen phone one of them drew a knife and another threw a petrol bomb at the officers of the report office,” he said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Kenya faces a constant danger of being attacked by adherents of the Somali militant group al-Shabaab, which has vowed retribution for Kenya’s deployment of troops to Somalia in 2011.
al-Shabaab is al Qaeda’s affiliate in the region. It has recruited hundreds of Kenyans and used them in numerous attacks on the country, including the April 2015 attack at Garissa University which killed more than 148 people.
Recently, al-Shabaab attacks in Kenya have been limited to the border towns of Mandera and Liboi near Somalia.
However, Kenya is also struggling to battle Islamic State’s recruitment of some of the country’s youths. At least 20 young Kenyans have traveled to Libya to join the extremist group, according to police.