By Humphrey Malalo
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenyan police have arrested four people over a grenade attack at a Nairobi bus station blamed on Somali Islamist militants, a senior police official said on Monday.
The military also increased security along the two countries’ land and sea borders, a government minister said.
The Kenya Red Cross said the death toll had risen to seven people and more than 40 victims remained in hospital after four grenades were hurled into the bus station from a passing vehicle on Saturday.
The latest explosions in the capital were similar to two attacks at another bus station and a bar that killed one person and wounded more than 20 in October, a week after Kenya sent troops into Somalia to try to crush the militants.
Nairobi Provincial Police chief Antony Kibuchi told Reuters four people had been arrested but he gave no further details.
Internal Security Minister George Saitoti told a parliamentary defence committee on Monday that security was tightened along the land frontier and the maritime boundary, including increased naval patrols and aerial surveillance.
The al Shabaab rebel group, which formally merged with al Qaeda this year and has declared war against Kenya, denied it was responsible for the attack on Saturday.
Al Shabaab said in a statement it would take “all necessary measures” to avenge what it called the gratuitous violence perpetrated by the Kenyan government against Muslims”.
“The turmoil that is rapidly spreading across Kenya is in fact a monument to the grossly misguided foreign policies and misplaced priorities of the Kenyan government that seems to be under the delusion that it is waging a winnable war against Islam,” al Shabaab said.