Kenyan police said Sunday they are holding 16 terror suspects for assembling improvised explosive devices (IED).

The divisional police commander, Jackson Rotich, told Xinhua that the suspects were arrested on Saturday afternoon in the northern town of Mandera near the border with Ethiopia and Somalia.

Rotich linked the suspects to a spate of insecurity in Mandera and its environs, saying they will be arraigned in court on Monday.

"Thank God the evil plot by the suspects was nabbed at the right time otherwise it could have caused a lot of damage," Rotich said by telephone.

He said the suspects were found assembling the IED behind a local hotel and were promptly arrested by the officers on patrol.

Mandera, just like the neighboring towns of Wajir and Garissa, has experienced a series of grenade and landmine explosions for the past 15 months, in which dozens of security officers and civilians have been killed or seriously injured.

The explosions and gun attacks have been blamed on sympathizers of Somalia's terrorist group Al-Shabaab linked to Al-Qaida.

Meanwhile, clan bandits defied huge presence of security personnel in Mandera County in northern Kenya and killed two people and injured four others in separate attacks on Sunday.

The killings which took place in two remote villages in Banisa constituency has renewed the subsiding inter-clan feuds in the county "cursed "with spate of recurring bloody clan fighting also sent hundreds of panic stricken villagers fleeing from their home for fear of more attacks.

Local County representative Yakub Hassan said in the first incident which occurred in Urille village in Lulis sub-location some three kilometers from Banisa town left an elderly woman killed and four others injured.

Hassan said those injured critically included a pregnant mother, two middle age men and three years old child.

"Armed people estimated by the victims to be more than 15 people descended on the village and indiscriminately open fire on the residents instantly killing the woman and injuring the four others," Hassan said.

He said those injured in the raid suffered critical spinal injuries and compound fractures and were been treated at Banisa hospital as they wait for airlifting to Mandera district hospital for a specialized treatment.

Hassan said the heavily armed bandits believed to from a rival clan besiege the village shot on the sleeping residents at about midnight.

And in the second incident a middle age motorcycle operator was shot dead at 10 a.m. local time on Sunday by suspected clan bandits at Birbore village some 5 km from Banisa town.

Hassan said the motorcycle operator was waylaid on his way to Banisa from Takaba by armed men who ask him to identify himself before shooting him on the head several time.

The renewed killing by suspected gunmen from one of the feuding clan comes as assorted of nineteen firearms and over 600 rounds of ammunition were been surrendered by the warring clans in the border county in the last two weeks.

The government dispatched hundreds of heavily equipped security personnel to restore normalcy in the area two weeks ago after six people were killed and several homes torched down in Rhamu town.

Kenyan security personnel patrolling the Somalia border have been hit with a series of explosion attacks since Kenya sent its troops to fight Al-Shabaab inside Somalia, often killing or injuring officers.

Since the Kenya military incursion into Somalia several attacks believed to have been carried out by Al-Shabaab have occurred in Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa and Dadaab districts of northern Kenya even as the military reports gains against the Islamist group by capturing their military bases and killing scores of them.