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Kenyan Muslim cleric Salim Bakari Mwarangi shot dead in Mombasa | Kenyan Muslim cleric Salim Bakari Mwarangi shot dead in Mombasa |
(about 1 hour later) | |
A moderate Muslim cleric has been shot dead by gunmen in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, police say. | A moderate Muslim cleric has been shot dead by gunmen in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, police say. |
Salim Bakari Mwarangi, a vocal critic of Somalia's al-Shabab Islamist group, was shot after evening prayers on Tuesday, the city's police chief said. | Salim Bakari Mwarangi, a vocal critic of Somalia's al-Shabab Islamist group, was shot after evening prayers on Tuesday, the city's police chief said. |
The BBC's Robert Kiptoo in Mombasa says he had received death threats from those who accused him of being too close to the government. | The BBC's Robert Kiptoo in Mombasa says he had received death threats from those who accused him of being too close to the government. |
Six clerics, both radical and moderate, have been killed in Mombasa since 2012. | |
Kenya's coastal region, which has a large Muslim population, has been hit by a series of attacks blamed on al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda. | |
'Government spy' | |
"Gunmen on a motorbike slowed down, shot at him and sped off," Mombasa's police chief Robert Kitur told the AFP news agency. | |
"Police have launched an investigation and manhunt for the attackers." | |
Our reporter says Mr Mwarangi, who preached in Mombasa's Likoni suburb, was unpopular with radical Muslim youths in the city because he campaigned against radicalisation and drug use. | |
Some regarded him as a government spy, he says. | |
The government has provided security and transport for locals wishing to attend his burial about 55km (34 miles) away in the fishing town of Msambweni, our correspondent says. | |
In recent years, the authorities have been trying to break up militant recruitment networks in Muslim communities in Kenya. | |
Supporters of the three hardline Muslim preachers who have been shot dead in Mombasa since August 2012 accuse the government of being behind their killings - charges the authorities denied. | |
In April, Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, known as Makaburi, who had been listed by the UN as a recruiter for al-Shabab, was killed near Mombasa. | |
Before he died he had said he supported the group's attack last year on the Westgate shopping centre in the capital, Nairobi, when 67 people died. |
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