NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Two blasts hit Kenya's capital on Friday, killing four people and injuring many more, in what appeared to be the latest in a string of increasingly frequent terror attacks.
The blasts came the same week the United States and the U.K. 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.
Before the blasts, the U.S. 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 U.S. warning this week said for the first time that the embassy itself is 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.
An explosion on Friday hit a mini-van that Kenyans use for public transportation near downtown Nairobi, and another blast went off near a market, Kenya's National Disaster Operation Centre said.
Security concerns have long been high in Kenya because of its proximity to Somalia and the al-Qaida-linked terrorist group that operates there. In September, four al-Shabab gunmen attacked an upscale mall in Nairobi, killing at least 67 people. The 1998 embassy bombing killed more than 200.
