A man throws water over a burning tyre set alight in a street by Muslim youths in Mombasa, Kenya. Photograph: AP
Young Muslims have set fire to a church, burned tyres and clashed with police in Kenya's main port city of Mombasa after the killing of an Islamic cleric which his followers blamed on security forces.
Sheikh Ibrahim Omar's death ignited religious tensions in the commercial and tourism hub of east Africa's largest economy, two weeks after Islamist militants killed at least 67 people in a raid on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall.
Police said the imam was shot dead in Mombasa on Thursday night. He preached at a mosque that has in the past been linked to the Somali al-Shabaab Islamist group, which claimed responsibility for the mall attack.
Omar was found dead in a car hit by more than a dozen bullets, television images showed. Youths torched a Salvation Army church and temporarily blocked the main road into the city, a witness said. Police in riot gear fired gunshots and teargas to break up the crowd.
The worst of the running battles with police took place in the impoverished Saba Saba neighbourhood, where traders shuttered their shops and residents fled for safety.
"We are trying to deal with some youths who have started bringing trouble within town," Robert Kitur, the Mombasa county police chief, said. "They are few. We will contain them."
The shooting happened on the main road to the resort town of Malindi, a few hundred metres from where another hardline cleric, Aboud Rogo, was shot dead in his vehicle in August 2012 in a similar attack.
Both Kenya and the US had accused Rogo of recruiting and fundraising for al-Shabaab. Rogo's death unleashed deadly riots in Mombasa's rundown neighbourhoods where he commanded a loyal support base.
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.
"This is no doubt a police execution given what has happened in Nairobi," said Abdul Hassan Omar, 37, in the Majengo district, where Omar and Rogo both preached.
Kitur dismissed the accusation and said officers would stop any protests after Friday prayers getting out of control.
"The police have nothing to do with the shooting. That's not how we operate," he told reporters.
The 21 September assault on the Westgate mall was the worst militant strike on Kenyan soil since al-Qaida bombed the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998. The raid has raised questions over intelligence failures.
"They [authorities] have panicked because of their own laxity which killed Kenyans at Westgate. Now they are trying to save face by sacrificing innocent Muslims," said Hatib Suleiman, 21, who prays at Omar's Masjid Mussa mosque. "We are not going to take this lightly."
Al-Amin Kimathi, chairman of the Muslim Human Rights Forum, said Omar had been a student of Rogo and had publicly espoused the hardline ideological beliefs of his former mentor.
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