Two police officers have been killed and three others injured in a suspected al-Shabab militant attack on a police vehicle near the Dadaab refugee camp in northeast Kenya.

Security officials in Kenya say two police officers have died and three others were injured when the vehicle they were traveling in came in contact with an improvised explosive device along Garissa Dadaab Road, in Kenya’s Garissa County.  

Security officials declined to respond to VOA’s request for a comment.  

Dadaab Parliament member Farah Maalim said in a telephone conversation the government needs to change its tactics.

“The way to deal with al-Shabab is not to use mechanized conventional military system, the way to deal with them is to have people tracking them and bringing them down one by one,” Maalim said.

The officers left the Dadaab police station only to strike an explosive device in Hagarbul village near the Dadaab refugee camp.  

The incident that happened Friday morning comes barely a week after three police officers from the Border Patrol Unit were killed in the same area when an explosive blew up their vehicle.  

Maalim says the government needs to make use of its elders and should empower them to help — a strategy he says has worked in Somalia.

“We can put together Kenya Police Reserves (KPR) militia, the so-called local version of Macawisley, can finish the job,” said Maalim. “The only thing we need is support from the government, like a structured command system, and we train them.”

The Islamist militant group has in the past carried out a spate of attacks in Kenyan cities and towns in an attempt to get Kenya to withdraw its troops from the Africa Union-led peace keeping force in Somalia.

 
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