Suspected Al-Shabaab Islamists killed three teachers and kidnapped another at a primary school in eastern Kenya on Monday, police said, the latest in a spate of attacks in the region.

The assailants also torched a police post and damaged a telecoms mast in the attack in Kamuthe, 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the town of Garissa.

At around 2am (2300 GMT Sunday) “suspected armed AS Militia attacked Kamuthe primary school, Kamuthe Police Post, a telecommunications mast and murdered 3 teachers”, a police statement said.

“The telecommunications mast is partially damaged but operational.”

A separate police report on the incidents seen by AFP said the three teachers killed were not from the region, and that a local teacher was abducted. The assailants spared a nurse as she was a woman.

“They also set fire” to the police post in Kamuthe, a senior police officer who asked not to be identified told AFP.

Since the start of the year, the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab have stepped up their attacks in eastern Kenya, along the Somali border, and Kenyan police have been on high alert.

On January 5, the Islamists stormed onto a US military base in the coastal Lamu region, destroying several aircraft and killing three Americans.

Two days later they killed four civilians, including a child, during an attack on a telecommunications mast near Garissa.

Al-Shabaab issued a statement last Wednesday warning that Kenya “will never be safe”, threatening tourists and US interests in the country.

The group said Kenya should withdraw its forces from Somalia while they still “have the chance”.

Kenya sent troops into Somalia in 2011 as part of an African Union peacekeeping mission fighting against Al-Shabaab and has seen several brutal retaliation attacks both on its troops in Somalia and civilians in Kenya.

This week Kenya marks a year since the January 15 siege of the upscale Dusit hotel complex in Nairobi left 21 dead. Previous attacks have killed 67 at the Westgate shopping centre in 2013 and 148 at Garissa University in 2015. (AFP)

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