A petrol bomb
was thrown and officers were stabbed in the attack on Mombasa's Central
Police Station, which Mombasa county police commander Patterson Maelo
described as a terrorist incident.
The
attack began when the women, their faces covered with buibui, a black
shawl worn by many Muslim women in east Africa, entered the police
station complaining their phones had been stolen, Maelo said.
One of the women then threw a petrol
bomb, while the other two stabbed police officers. Police responded by
shooting the women, killing them, he said.
The
women were wearing bulletproof vests, he said. Images from the scene
showed bomb detector units checking the women's bodies for explosives.
Two police officers were injured in the attack and were in stable condition Sunday at a local hospital, he said.
No
group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Patterson said
suspicion was falling on Al-Shabaab, an Islamist group in neighboring
Somalia which has repeatedly carried out terror attacks on Kenyan soil.


Chapisha Maoni