Deadly bomb blast strikes Nairobi

At least two people were killed and eight wounded in Kenya’s capital Nairobi on Friday after a bomb exploded in the predominantly Somali district of Eastleigh. The blast was the second bomb attack in the impoverished suburb in as many days.

By News Wires (text)

A bomb blast in a predominantly Somali district of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi on Friday killed two people and wounded at least eight, the Kenyan Red Cross said.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack in the run-down Eastleigh suburb, the second explosion there in two days.

Kenyan authorities have blamed Somali militants and their sympathisers for a wave of grenade and gun attacks in Kenya after Nairobi sent soldiers into neighbouring Somalia last year to drive out Islamist fighters with links to al Qaeda.

“There’s been another explosion in Eastleigh. This one was near a mosque,” Nairobi police chief Moses Ombati told Reuters from the scene of the blast.

Ombati said that it was too early to tell the cause of the blast and it was possible the casualty toll would rise.

Unknown assailants on Wednesday detonated a makeshift bomb, apparently by remote control, wounding at least nine people in an attack that appeared to target Kenyan nationals.

Mounting insecurity is a growing concern as the region’s biggest economy prepares for a presidential election in March, the first poll since a contested 2007 vote which unleashed nationwide ethnic violence.

(REUTERS)