A mil­i­tary he­li­copter crash in Kenya near the bor­der with So­ma­lia has killed at least eight peo­ple, of­fi­cials said Tues­day.

It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear what caused the crash in the coun­ty of Lamu in coastal Kenya. Kenyan de­fense forces op­er­ate in the area to help de­ter al-Qai­da-linked ex­trem­ists from the al-Sha­hab group, based across the bor­der in So­ma­lia.

The De­part­ment of De­fense said the Air Force he­li­copter crashed while on night pa­trol. It said a board of in­quiry has been sent to the scene.

A de­fense and a po­lice of­fi­cials, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rized to speak to re­porters, said all mil­i­tary per­son­nel and crew on board the he­li­copter died.

Kenyan troops are al­so in So­ma­lia un­der the African Union Tran­si­tion Mis­sion in So­ma­lia to help in fight­ing al-Shabab. The Kenyan forces de­ployed to So­ma­lia in 2011, but there are now plans to with­draw the multi­na­tion­al forces as So­ma­li troops take over re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty.

Al-Shabab has in­creased at­tacks in Kenya in re­cent months, killing dozens of peo­ple in the bor­der re­gion as the ex­trem­ists feel pres­sure from a So­ma­li mil­i­tary of­fen­sive that was launched last year.

BY EVE­LYNE MUSAM­BI

NAIRO­BI, Kenya (AP)