Two blasts hit Kenya’s capital on Friday, killing 10 people and injuring 70 more, the latest in a string of increasingly frequent terror attacks.
The blasts came the same week the United States and UK issued renewed warnings about possible terror attacks in Kenya, leading to a bristling response from the country’s president Friday, who said such warnings strengthen the will of terrorists.
Nairobi police chief Benson Kibue, who announced the casualty figures, said two improvised explosive devices detonated in a market area near downtown Nairobi. One blast hit a minivan used for public transportation.
Before the blasts, the US embassy sent out a new travel alert Friday to American citizens warning of a continued terrorist threat in a country where the U.S. embassy suffered a devastating attack in 1998.
An earlier US warning this week said for the first time that the embassy was taking new steps to increase security “due to recent threat information regarding the international community in Kenya.”
Britain’s government also warned its citizens this week to avoid the coastal city of Mombasa and beach towns nearby, prompting a travel company to cut short the vacations of hundreds of British citizens and fly them home.