20120828
AFP
Rioters clashed with police in Kenya's port city of Mombasa for a second day Tuesday, after the killing of an extremist cleric linked to Somalia's Al-Qaeda-allied militants, witnesses said.

Hundreds of angry youths threw stones, damaged cars and chanted slogans in support of slain preacher Aboud Rogo Mohammed, as police tried to contain them, an AFP reporter said.

"The riots have started again," said Khalid Hussein of Muslims for Human Rights, a local organisation in Mombasa, Kenya's main port and a popular tourist town.

Staff in Mombasa's main hospital reported that at least 14 people had been injured in the clashes, while two anti-riot police were also wounded, police said.

As the rioting stretched into a second day, Somalia's Islamist Shebab fighters called on Kenyan Muslims to "take all necessary measures" to defend their religion.

"Muslims must take the matter into their own hands, stand united against the kuffar (unbelievers) and take all necessary measures to protect their religion, their honour, their property and their lives from the enemies of Islam," the Shebab said in a statement.

The cleric, who was shot dead on Monday by "unknown people", according to the police, was on US and UN sanctions lists for allegedly supporting the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab, including through recruitment and fundraising.

He was driving with his wife and children when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle, leaving it riddled with bullets. Images released by his supporters showed his bloody corpse slumped behind the wheel.

Shortly after his death furious protests erupted, with one person hacked to death, cars torched, businesses attacked and five churches looted or set on fire.

Despite the eruption of fresh clashes Tuesday, regional police chief Aggrey Adoli said the protests were under control.

"A group of youth has been throwing stones here and there, but our officers are there to contain the situation," Adoli said.

The Supreme Council of Muslims in Kenya condemned the violence, especially the targeting of churches.

"This kind of violence goes against our faith. The protesters shouldn't hide behind Islam or any of its teachings," said the council's secretary general, Adan Wachu. "These are criminals and should be treated as such."

The cleric -- popularly known as Rogo -- was the spiritual leader of the Muslim Youth Center (MYC), a group viewed as a close ally of the extremist Shebab.

The Islamist MYC blamed the authorities for what they called a "targeted assassination", but police have dismissed the claim and say they are hunting the killers.

"Our beloved Sheikh Aboud Rogo... was murdered by the kuffar (unbelievers) as part of Kenya's policy of extra-judicial killings against prominent Muslim activists," the MYC said Tuesday in a statement.

Rogo was placed on a US sanctions list in July for "engaging in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Somalia", specifically for recruiting and fundraising for the Shebab.

The United Nations Security Council placed a travel ban and asset freeze on him in July, saying he had provided "financial, material, logistical or technical support to Al-Shebab".

Police on Tuesday appealed to the public for information on Rogo's killing.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Monday condemned Rogo's "horrific" murder, adding the government was "committed to bringing whoever was responsible to justice".

Rogo had been accused by the UN of using the MYC group as "a pathway for radicalisation and recruitment of principally Swahili-speaking Africans for carrying out violent militant activity in Somalia".

The cleric is also alleged to have introduced Fazul Abdullah Mohammed -- the late head of Al-Qaeda's east Africa cell, shot dead last year in Somalia's war-torn capital Mogadishu -- to at least one of the men who helped him carry out the twin US embassy bombings in 1998.

The bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killed 224 people.