Kenya Base ‘Surprisingly’ Undefended During Attack, US Officials Say

The attack began in the dark hours of the morning, with Shabaab firing mortars on Camp Simba and simultaneously pushing deep into the airfield. The fighters blasted rockets into a taxiing surveillance plane, killing the two American contractors, and destroyed millions of dollars worth of U.S. aircraft and equipment, the New York Times reported. Army Specialist Henry Mayfield Jr., 23, was killed in the ensuing gunfight. A Marine special operations team scrambled from Camp Simba to counter the assault alongside some of the Kenyan Rangers they had been training, but the base is a mile away from the airfield, and many of the Shabaab fighters melted into the night and back across the border into Somalia.