KDF Soldiers Accused of 'Hiding in the Grass', Leaving their US Counterparts on their Own During the Lamu Al-Shabaab Attack

New reports by a section of the US media claim that soldiers from the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) failed to cover their American counterparts during an al-Shabaab attack on Camp Simba in Manda Bay, Lamu County on January 5th.

Kenyan soldiers allegedly hid in the grass when armed gunmen stormed the military base, killing three American citizens, according to The New York Times. Camp Simba hosts both Kenyan and US forces.

"Many of the local Kenyan forces, assigned to defend the base, hid in the grass while other American troops and support staff were corralled into tents, with little protection, to wait out the battle," The New York Times says in the article published on Wednesday, January 22nd.

Among those killed during the raid was a US service member and two Department of Defense contractors, the US Africa Command confirmed, adding that two other contractors were injured.

The New York Times added that US authorities believe that the terrorists may have been assisted by Kenyan workers at the camp. Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization that operates from Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack.

"Investigators are looking at the possibility the attackers had help from Kenyan staff on the base. The performance of the Kenyan security forces during and after the battle frustrated American officials," the The New York Times adds in the article.

It further reported that KDF claimed to have captured six of the attackers but they all turned out to be "bystanders and were released." The publication noted that, on the morning of the attack, contractor pilots Dustin Harrison, 47, and Bruce Triplett, 64, were taxiing their Beechcraft King Air 350 on Manda Bay’s tarmac.

"They throttled down their engines, according to one person familiar with the attack. The two men reported that they saw animals darting across the runway. They were wrong. The animals were in fact Shabab fighters, who had infiltrated the base’s outer perimeter — a poorly defended fence line — before heading to the base’s airstrip," the article reads.

The publication added that al-Shabab fighters fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the plane soon after it began to taxi, killing Harrison and Triplett. "With the plane on fire, a third contractor, badly burned in the rear of the aircraft, crawled out to safety," it states.