MOMBASA, Kenya – Gunfire erupted in and around a mosque in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on Sunday following a raid by armed police who had received a tip-off that Muslim youths were being radicalised and trained for militant attacks.<\/p>\n
The raid sparked violent protests inside the Masjid Mussa mosque in the city’s run-down Majengo neighbourhood and in the surrounding streets. Police fired teargas and live rounds over the heads of taunting crowds, who hurled stones back.<\/p>\n
Breaking up Islamist militant networks among its Muslim minority has become a priority for Kenya as it tries to end attacks by Somali militants and their sympathisers bent on punishing it for sending troops to fight al Shabaab rebels.<\/p>\n
The cost of failure was laid bare when al Shabaab gunmen attacked a Nairobi shopping mall in September, killing at least 67 people. Western investigators said local militant networks helped the attackers carry out the assault.<\/p>\n
“They attacked our mosque, but they’re not going to kill our spirit,” one youth shouted from behind a wall in the mosque’s compound. “Jihad is the way to go.”<\/p>\n
More than four hours after the initial police swoop, gunshots continued to echo around the neighbourhood of ramshackle buildings and garbage-filled gutters.<\/p>\n
Mombasa’s police chief Robert Kitur said the raid followed a tip off. When his officers burst into the mosque, where radical clerics regularly preach, they came under gunfire.<\/p>\n
Kitur said ringleaders shielded themselves behind children and infants, the first time he had seen such a tactic used.<\/p>\n
“We found them engaging in radicalisation and training of youths,” Kitur told reporters close to the mosque as the operation went on.<\/p>\n
JIHADI BANNERS<\/p>\n
Police seized black banners emblazoned with jihadi slogans, laptops and DVDs during the raid. Outside the mosque shoes, teargas canisters and spent bullet cartridges were strewn on the ground.<\/p>\n
Many Muslims in Mombasa’s poorer neighbourhoods feel marginalised by the predominantly Christian Nairobi government, while the forceful crackdown on Islamist militant recruitment networks in the tourist hub is fuelling resentment.<\/p>\n
But Kenyan security officials say the Masjid Mussa mosque is a hotbed of militant activity, in particular recruitment into local Islamist networks and al Shabaab in Somalia.<\/p>\n
Masked gunmen in August 2012 shot dead a firebrand cleric, Aboud Rogo, who often taught at the mosque and whom the United States and Kenya accused of recruiting and fundraising for the al Qaeda-linked Somali rebel group.<\/p>\n
A year later, Rogo’s protege was gunned down in a strikingly similar attack. Both murders triggered violent unrest in the city.<\/p>\n
Worshippers at the Masjid Mussa mosque accuse the security services of operating a death squad, a charge the police denies.<\/p>\n
Kitur said the security forces had arrested more than 100 people during Sunday’s clashes and two officers had been wounded. One policeman was found sprawled in a pool of blood in a bathroom inside the mosque and was in critical condition.<\/p>\n
“We found him locked up in a bathroom after we heard him groaning. It appears like they slaughtered him,” said one armed policeman who withheld his name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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