Five members of Kenya's police force and one civilian were killed in an ambush on Tuesday by suspected Somali Islamist militants near the Somali border, a senior official said.

 Samuel Arachi, deputy inspector general of police, said on Tuesday  that the eight died when a police car was sprayed with bullets 9 kilometers (5 miles) from the Kenya-Somalia border.

 Musa Yego, the criminal investigations chief in Garissa County, said al-Shabab is suspected of carrying out Tuesday's attack as two suspected members of al Shabab group were also killed in the fighting.

 Kenya's border area with Somalia has suffered attacks on government officials and non-Somali civilians since Oct. 2011 when Kenya sent troops into Somalia to fight the Islamic extremist al-Shabab rebels.