Police recover IEDs, rifles and grenades in Garissa

Police Officers have recovered warfare equipment in Garissa.

In the operation conducted on Monday, members of the National Police Service recovered the equipment including two RPGs with seven warheads, six AK47 rifles with 20 magazines and one PKM machine gun with a belt of 200 rounds.

Others were two hand grenades, Improvised Explosive Device (IED) materials, a food cache, a cellphone and memory cards.

This took place after patrol officers found fresh footprints at Billow Dam at around 1100 hours and tracked them for about 2.7 km.

They found a makeshift camp in Alango, Garissa, which al Shabaab militants planned to use to launch attacks in the County.

NPS said there were some 10 suspected al Shabaab militants who engaged the officers in a shootout.

The militants managed to escape, however, police spokesperson Dr Resla Onyango said the operation is ongoing and efforts to arrest them are underway. 

This comes in the wake of reports the terror gang has been sending its members to Kenya in the past month in readiness for an attack.

Police say they have upped their operations in the area to tame the plans for the attacks.

"This is a good recovery coming at a time when we are facing threats by the terrorists. The operation is ongoing," Resla said.

Two ambushes have happened in the past two months which left police officers injured.

The recovery comes after announcements that three border points between Kenya and Somalia that have been closed for close to 12 years are set to be opened.

The three border points-Handera-Bulahawa in Mandera County, Liboi-Harhar in Garissa County and Kiunga-Daresalam in Lamu County were closed in 2011 at the height of invasions and attacks masterminded by the al Shabaab terror group.

On May 15, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki held a meeting with his Somalia counterpart Mohamed Sheikh Doodishe to deliberate on the road map to reopening the three border points.

It comes after the launch of the Kenya-Somalia-Ethiopia border project in Mandera.

The shutdowns have not stopped people from crossing the border illegally or smuggling goods.

Since 2011, Kenya's northeast has experienced a long series of attacks by al Shabab fighters.

In the deadliest attack, the Islamist militant group killed nearly 150 people at Garissa University College in 2015.