Kenya has refuted claims by a US senator that there were Kenyan casualties in the Manda Bay dawn terror attack by Al-Shabaab.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’I dismissed reports Kenya suffered casualties, instead saying none of the terrorists who attacked the military base left alive.
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Senator Jim Risch had on Sunday said that a number of Kenyans were killed alongside three Americans in the early morning attack.
“I am saddened to learn that American and Kenyan lives were lost during a heinous terrorist attack on a Kenya-US operating base early this morning,” the Republican Senator from Idaho tweeted.
The US Africa Command on Monday confirmed one US service member and two contractors were killed on the Kenya Defence Force and US military camp in Lamu.
The government said eight militants were killed and five captured alive.
Al-Shabaab had claimed that there were 17 US casualties, nine Kenyan soldiers killed and seven aircraft destroyed.
Last year, al-Shabaab attacked a US military base inside Somalia, Baledogle, that is used to launch drone strikes but reportedly failed to make their way inside.
