20100720
reuters

ISIOLO Kenya (Reuters) - Kenyan security forces clashed along the border on Tuesday with gunmen from the Somali rebel group that was behind deadly suicide bombings in Uganda this month, an official and residents said.

Both Kenya and Somalia's al Shabaab militia were reported to be sending reinforcements to the area, although similar border skirmishes in the past have not escalated into wider fighting.

Wilson Murungi, commissioner of the Kenyan border district of Lagdera, said al Shabaab gunmen ambushed a Kenyan border patrol and wounded one officer. He said a team had been sent to beef up security and investigate the incident.

"The attack was not a raid inside (Kenya). Our officers were attacked as they conducted a normal patrol. The militias fired at them on the other side of the border," Murungi told Reuters.

Residents near the Liboi border post in Kenya said there was a fierce exchange of fire between the two sides.

Al Shabaab, a hardline rebel group with links to al Qaeda, controls much of southern Somalia bordering northeastern Kenya and is fighting to topple the Western-backed government in the Horn of Africa nation.

Al Shabaab is regarded as a patchwork of networks including foreigners who favour al Qaeda-style global attacks as well as more nationalistic Somalis who want to impose their own harsh version of Islamic sharia law at home.