- Title: KENYA: Calm returns to Mombasa after day of riots
- Date: 5th October 2013
- Summary: MOMBASA, KENYA (OCTOBER 5, 2013) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF SALVATION ARMY CHURCH IN MAJENGO DISTRICT WHICH WAS BURNT DOWN BY YOUTHS LOCAL RESIDENTS WALKING PAST BURNT CHURCH VARIOUS OF BURNT ENTRANCE TO CHURCH POLICE OFFICERS STANDING NEAR THE CHURCH VARIOUS OF LOCAL RESIDENTS WALKING NEAR BURNT CHURCH MAN SELLING WATER NEAR BURNT CHURCH VARIOUS OF MASJID MUSA (MOSQUE) IN
- Embargoed: 20th October 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kenya
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: Crime,General,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA7DLJN4F3ZZ71Q47R55G5NVW5M
- Story Text: Kenya's main port city of Mombasa was calm again on Saturday (October 5) a day after Muslim youths set fire to a church and clashed with police, leaving at least four people dead, after the killing of an Islamic cleric.
Youths torched a Salvation Army church in the Majengo district and temporarily blocked the main road into the city after the fatal shooting of Sheikh Ibrahim Omar on Thursday night (October 3).
The shooting of Muslim cleric Sheikh Ibrahim Omar ignited religious tensions in the commercial and tourism hub, two weeks after Islamist militants killed at least 67 people in a raid on a Nairobi shopping mall.
The imam and three other men were found dead in a car on Mombasa's outskirts on Thursday night, police said. Television images showed the vehicle sprayed with bullet holes.
Police dismissed allegations by Omar's associates and people who attended his mosque that the shooting was part of a crackdown on Muslims after the mall attack or any wider campaign.
A prominent Muslim cleric Sheikh Abubakar Shariff, who also preaches at the Masjid Musa mosque however, blamed the Kenyan Security forces for the killings.
"Whoever is a threat or whoever who has certain way of thinking or whoever is against the invasion of Somalia, they have a list and they get eliminated so it's not only me it's not Ibrahim, it's anybody who has certain thoughts and this has started a long time ago by disappearances, by killings of terror suspects so this thing has been going on for a long time." said Sheikh Shariff.
Shariff also said the attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi on September 21, 2013 which left dozens of people dead was justified.
"In Islam, yes, it is justified because the same atrocities that have been done at Westgate are being done in Somalia everyday by KDF, children are being killed, refugees are being bombed, women and old people are being slaughtered. The KDF should obey or implement the rules of war, they should not target women and children." said Sheikh Shariff.
On Friday (September 4), riot police fired gunshots and teargas to break up the rioters who had set alight a Salvation Army church and blocked a main road.
The Kenyan Red Cross later said four people had died, all with gunshot wounds.
The worst of the running battles with police took place in Mombasa's downtrodden Saba Saba neighbourhood, where traders shuttered their shops and residents fled for safety. An uneasy calm fell over Mombasa three hours after the clashes began.
Omar was killed on the main road to the resort town of Malindi, a few hundred metres (yards) from where another firebrand cleric, Aboud Rogo, was shot dead in his vehicle in August 2012 in a strikingly similar attack.
The United States and Kenya had accused Rogo of recruiting and fund-raising for Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants - the group that claimed responsibility for last month's mall raid.
Moderate Muslim leaders in Kenya said Omar had studied under Rogo and was nicknamed 'Rogo junior' after he publicly espoused the same hardline ideology of his former mentor.
Both imams were popular among youths in Mombasa and along Kenya's Indian Ocean coastline where many Muslims feel marginalised by the predominantly Christian government.
Rogo's death last year unleashed deadly riots in Mombasa.
The assault on the Westgate mall was the worst militant strike on Kenyan soil since al Qaeda bombed the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 1998. The raid shocked Kenyans and the world and has raised questions over intelligence failures. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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