Pangani attack the work of a suicide bomber, police
Police have now attributed Wednesday’s bomb explosion at Pangani police station to a suicide bomber who was facing arrest for a traffic offense.
A tweet from a Twitter account often associated to the Islamist group Al-Shabaab however claimed that the Pangani blast “smells like an inside job.”
Inspector General David Kimaiyo, while explaining the sequence of events leading to the explosion, said police on a patrol car had flagged down a salon car that was being driven on the wrong side of the road.
Two police officers then entered the car to escort the driver and passenger to the police station for further interrogation.
“Officers entered the car to make sure suspects didn’t escape. One sat in front and the other at the back as a patrol car escorted them from behind,” Mr Kimaiyo explained.
But just at the entrance of the police station, one of the occupants detonated a homemade bomb that had been mounted at the boot of the car. The car exploded killing the two officers and the two suspects on the spot.
Officers in an escort car that was behind them were lucky; only the front tyres of their vehicle were deflated, and the windscreen shattered but the officers were unharmed
Police boss Kimaiyo said the crackdown on suspected terrorist cells in the city will still continue.
“We cannot be cowed by such heinous acts and therefore I fully declare war against any acts of crime in the country,” Mr Kimaiyo said in the statement.