Gunmen kidnap French woman in Kenya

Unidentified Somali gunmen have kidnapped a French woman in northern Kenya's Manda Bay area and have taken her into Somalia after a clash with Kenyan security forces, Press TV reports. Kenyan police officials said on Saturday that the abductors were "10 heavily armed Somali bandits suspected to be al-Shabab fighters" from Ras Kiamboni, across the border in Somalia, a Press TV correspondent reported. Local officials said the 66-year-old woman was wheelchair-bound and well known in the area, where she spends much of the year. The kidnapping happened near the Lamu holiday resort in Kenya, where a British woman was kidnapped and her husband killed by gunmen last month. The French Embassy in Nairobi has issued a travel advisory warning French citizens to avoid the region near the Somali border. And the French Foreign Ministry has issued a statement saying that French officials are “working with the Kenyan authorities, who have mobilized significant air and sea resources in order to free our compatriot.” Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. The Somali government only controls a small area of Mogadishu. And Somali soldiers are poorly trained and seldom get paid, which hinders the government's efforts to defeat al-Shabab fighters.