Kenya police shoot dead man, arrest 250 during mosque raids
Mon Nov 17, 2014 12:57pm GMT
By Joseph Akwiri
MOMBASA, Kenya Nov 17 (Reuters) - Kenyan police shot dead a man and arrested
about 250 others when they searched two mosques in this port city that they
said were used to recruit militants and stash weapons, senior officials said
on Monday.
Kenya has been trying to break up militant networks it blames for a series
of attacks on the coast, saying many recruits were inspired by Somalia's
Islamist group al Shabaab.
"These mosques have been notorious for radicalising our youth and recruiting
them into al Shabaab," Nelson Marwa, the commissioner responsible for
administering Mombasa County, told Reuters after Monday's police raids.
Kenya has sent troops to Somalia as a part of an African Union peacekeeping
force, while Al Shabaab, which was behind a bloody 2013 attack on Nairobi's
Westgate shopping mall, has vowed to drive the Kenyan and other African
soldiers out.
Some 251 youths, who had been camping in Mussa and Sakina mosques and
receiving militant training, were arrested, police said. They added that one
man was shot dead at the Mussa mosque when he tried to throw a grenade at
officers.
Geoffrey Mayek, Mombasa police chief, told reporters that eight grenades, a
pistol, six bullets, machetes, daggers and literature on warfare were found
at the two mosques.
Police seized mobiles and laptops, alongside literature and videos that they
said referred to former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Kenyan preachers
accused of promoting militancy.
Civil rights group condemned the raids, saying the security agents were
targeting Muslims unfairly, deepening distrust in a Muslim community that
already accuses the government in mainly Christian Kenyan of sidelining
them.
"The police have again defiled the mosques and turned them into camps of
violence and have arrested many innocent people and even killed one
unfairly," Hussein Khalid, director of Haki Africa, a local rights group,
told Reuters.
Businesses in the Majengo area where the mosques are situated were closed as
heavily armed police patrolled the neighbourhood on trucks. Past raids have
sparked protests. (Editing by Edmund Blair and Crispian Balmer)