(Bloomberg) -- One U.S. service member and two defense contractors were killed Sunday in an al-Qaeda-linked raid on a joint defense facility in Kenya, authorities said. Two more service members were wounded and have been evacuated.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of our teammates who lost their lives today,” U.S. Army General Stephen Townsend, commander, U.S. Africa Command, said in a statement.
Earlier, the Kenyan army said it stopped the Sunday morning raid on a base it uses with the U.S. in the coastal county of Lamu, killing at least four attackers from the al-Shabaab terror group. “We remain committed to preventing al-Shabaab from maintaining a safe haven,” Townsend said.
An attempt was made to breach security at Manda airstrip early Sunday but was “successfully repulsed,” KenyaDefence Forces said on its Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) page. “Four terrorist bodies have so far been found. The airstrip is safe.”
“Although this attack shows a clear intent to continue targeting the United States’ presence in the region, the United States continues to stand in strong partnership with Kenya,” Representative Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.
The Manda Bay raid comes less than a week after a U.S. airstrike killed three members of al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based al-Qaeda-linked group that has claimed responsibility for the Sunday attack. The Jan. 3 strike was in support of Somalia, which with a regional mission that includes Kenya is striving to improve its security, according to the U.S. Africa Command.
Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he’s hopeful the attack will lead the panel to convene a hearing to examining the Trump administration’s policy in the region later this month.
“As we await further information on the specifics of this latest attack, it is clear that despite U. S. and international efforts to contain al-Shabaab, this terror organization remains a significant and active threat,” Menendez said in a statement.