Kenya police kill 20 sect suspects

Police stormed a Nairobi slum in search of members of a shadowy religious sect accused in a string of beheadings _ killing 22 suspects and arresting 100 during overnight gunbattles, officials said Tuesday.

The action against the suspected members of the Mungiki, an outlawed sect inspired by a 1950s uprising against British rule, came after two police officers were shot dead in the Mathare slum Monday.

"The police mounted an operation to crack down on those who were behind the killing," police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told The Associated Press. More than 100 people tried to obstruct the operation and a shootout began, he said.

Mungiki is suspected in the deaths of at least 18 people in the past three months, including 10 found mutilated or beheaded since May. The latest beheadings were overnight, the same time as the gunbattles in Nairobi, in Muranga, 40 miles north of the capital, police said.

A freelance TV journalist videotaped the raid in Nairobi's Mathare slum, showing senior police official Julius Ndegwa standing over the corpse of one of the officers killed Monday night. He exhorted more than a dozen police surrounding him to "clamp down on these elements."

"We dispose of them and we crack down on these characters right away," Ndegwa said.

The officers respond: "Immediately, sir."

The tape also shows officers kicking and beating people with truncheons as gunfire popped in the background during the overnight operation.

Mungiki faxed a statement to Kenya Television Network on Tuesday, saying the battles killed just one of its members.

Bramwel Ochieng, 25, who lives in Mathare, said police took too long to act against the Mungiki. The group also is accused of extorting money from minibus drivers who provide the main form of public transport in Kenya.

"These people have terrorized us for years," he said. "Police know about them but they take bribes and leave ... They only act when one of them (a police officer) is killed."

Last week, the government said police had arrested 2,464 suspected Mungiki followers in recent months.

The violence has raised fears that Mungiki members are out to disrupt the elections in December, when President Mwai Kibaki will seek a second term.

Police say they found leaflets allegedly circulated by the group calling on Kenyan youth to join and prepare for an uprising against the government. The leaflet includes a threat: "If one youth is killed we shall kill 10 police."

The president said Friday that those behind the violence act as if they have a right to kill.

"No one has such a right, and if you do that and hide wherever you can, we will get you. Now there is nobody who will think that person has a right to live," Kibaki said in informal remarks during celebrations to mark the anniversary of the country's partial independence from British colonial rule on June 1, 1963.

Mungiki is believed to have thousands of adherents, all drawn from the Kikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe. The group, whose name means "multitude" in the Kikuyu language, was inspired by the bloody Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s against the British.

Members traditionally wear dreadlocks, inspired by the Mau Mau who wore them as a symbol of anti-colonialism and their determination not to conform to Western norms. In recent years, however, many Mungiki have shaved their heads, believing dreadlocks are too conspicuous.

Sect members pray facing Mount Kenya, which the Kikuyu believe to be the home of their supreme deity. The group also encourages female genital mutilation and using tobacco snuff.

Mungiki was outlawed in 2002 after at least 20 people were killed in fighting between it and another gang called the Taliban, whose members come from the Luo tribe of western Kenya.

Mutuma Ruteere, dean of the Kenya Human Rights Institute, linked the Mungiki problem to poverty.

"We have no policies to ensure that young, poorly educated people have a livelihood and a stake in the future of this country," he told The Associated Press. "You can have the economy growing at 6 percent but these young men do not have shares at the stock exchange so this does not help them with anything."

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Associated Press writers Tom Maliti and Rob Jillo contributed to this report.