About ten General Service Unit(GSU) officers were injured on Sunday morning when an armoured personal carrier vehicle they were in ran over an improvised explosive device suspected to have been planted by al Shabaab.

The incident occurred at Mlima wa Faru, between Pandanguo and Witu in Lamu.

A response team of Kenya Defence Forces was also ambushed in the attack.

“The APC was first hit by a roadside bomb and when a team responded aboard a Landcruiser they were hit and we have casualties,” an official on the ground said.

Lamu West deputy county commissioner Gabriel Kioni confirmed that no casualties were reported in the ambush that injured several security officers.

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The injured officers were in their routine patrol within the Pandanguo route, which borders the vast Boni forest where a multi-agency security Operation Amani Boni is ongoing.

The operation was launched in 2015, initially named Operation Linda Boni to flush out the militants believed to be hiding inside the dense Boni Forest.

The affected officers are from the Pandanguo GSU camp and were on normal patrol before the vehicle ran over the explosive.

After the incident, the militants exited the forest and tried to attack the officers after the vehicle rolled.

“An exchange of fire ensued for some time," Kioni said.

It was then the KDF team arrived and was also ambushed.