Kenya fears Somalian spillover

GARISSA, KENYA — Kenyan soldiers and helicopters bolstered defenses Wednesday at this nation’s border with Somalia as Ethiopian warplanes attacked fleeing Islamists.

Residents of Liboi, a Kenyan border post, said they saw Ethiopian fighter jets and helicopters over the Somalian town of Doble, 15 miles away, late Tuesday. They heard shooting, which tailed off after midnight.

The Islamists, who deserted their last stronghold in Somalia on Monday after two weeks of war against Somalian government and Ethiopian troops, have pledged to fight on from the hills between Kenya and the city of Kismayo in Somalia.

One border security source said Kenyan forces were under orders not to let any Somalis into Kenya.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said about 400 Somalian asylum seekers had been sent back, most of them women and children.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said U.S. warships were deployed off Somalia to prevent the escape of three Al Qaeda suspects in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Washington thinks the Islamists were sheltering the suspects.