Kenya shopping mall evacuated after bomb scare, three arrested - police

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A big, new shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi was evacuated on Tuesday when a man with a suspected home-made bomb was stopped by security guards, police and mall officials said. Police said three men have been arrested in relation to the incident at the Garden City Mall, which opened in May as part of a $250 million project. Kenyan malls have been on heightened alert since 2013 when four gunmen from Somali militant group al Shabaab attacked the Westgate shopping mall, killing 67 people. The Garden City Mall said security guards intercepted a man acting suspiciously and found him to be carrying a small, handheld device. "A cordon was immediately put in place and two sniffer dogs confirmed that it was a live device," the mall said in a statement. A government bomb squad carried out a controlled explosion at the mall. Al Shabaab has staged several more large attacks on Kenyan soil over the past two years as retribution for Kenya sending troops to Somalia to fight the group as part of an African Union peacekeeping force. (Reporting by Humphrey Malalo, Writing by Drazen Jorgic, Editing by Angus MacSwan)