NAIROBI — Three women were killed after they attacked a police station in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa on Sunday, a police official said.

One of the women threw a firebomb at officers while another pulled out a knife, Mombasa police chief Parterson Maelo said. Two police officers were wounded in the attack, he said.

The women, who were dressed in niqabs, were then shot by police. One of the women had a suicide vest that didn’t detonate, another police official said.

No group had claimed responsibility for the attack. But Kenya is in continual danger of being attacked by adherents of the Somali militant group Al Shabab, which has vowed retribution for Kenya’s deployment of troops to Somalia in 2011.

Maelo said the women arrived at the central police station at about 10:30 a.m. to report a stolen telephone.

‘‘While the officers were questioning them about the particulars of the stolen phone one of them drew a knife and another threw a petrol bomb at the officers of the report office,’’ he said.

Two of the suspects were identified as Kenyans Fatuma Omar and Tasmin Yakub Abdullahi Farah, police spokesman Charles Owino said.

A raid was conducted at Farah’s house, leading to the arrest of three Somali refugees for questioning, he said.

It was the second attack linked to extremism on a police station this year. In July, a Muslim police officer killed seven colleagues in a standoff at the Kapenguria police station in western Kenya.