The antennas of Kenya’s top security organs are on high alert after controversial Muslim cleric Aboud Rogo was gunned down in a hail of bullets on Monday.
Mobs protesting Rogo’s death had killed at least one man by the time of going to press as violence rocked the coastal city of Mombasa. Church clerics were due to release a statement condemning the attack on the Salvation Army, Pentecostal Assemblies of God (PAG and Neno Evangelism churches and calling for calm.
Rogo, considered a key terror suspect by the both the Kenya and US Governments, died when assailants in a saloon car on the Mombasa-Malindi highway sprayed the white Nissan van he and his family were travelling in with bullets.
The killing of the controversial cleric came on the heels of the mysterious slaying of another terror suspect, Sheikh Amir Khan early this year.
Rogo’s wife, Haniya Said Sagaar, was badly injured in the left leg from the shooting, but his father-in-law Mzee Abdalah Ali and a female relative escaped unhurt, together with a young girl, aged six years, believed to be Sheikh Rogo’s daughter.
His killing sparked tensions that saw angry Muslim youth go on the rampage, setting fire to a church and van in the process.
Ironically, the violence in Mombasa exploded even as President Mwai Kibaki led the nation in a rallying call for peace on the anniversary of the day he promulgated the new Constitution. Read More