Official Dies When Rustlers Down Copter

Cattle rustlers shot down an army helicopter in northern Kenya, killing the district commissioner and the pilot, a television station reported Friday.

The attack happened near Laikipia, about 310 miles north of Nairobi, KTN television news said.

A brief government statement said only that an aircraft had been downed Thursday and two people killed.

The independent Daily Nation reported in today’s edition that the rustlers used rockets to shoot down the helicopter carrying Samburu district commissioner James Nuandoro.

Cattle rustling is traditional in the region, but in the past few were killed because only spears and bows and arrows were used. Automatic weapons from civil war zones in neighboring Sudan and Somalia have completely changed the nature of cattle theft in northern Kenya.