Kenyan authorities said late Monday that they were holding 10 Somali Islamists who fled fighting following a night of intense Ethiopian artillery bombardment in the southern port city of Kismayo.

Kenyan police said they were arrested in Liboi, near the common frontier with Somalia as the east African nation reinforced ground and aerial patrols, mainly covering the Ras Kamboni area, a border forest near the Indian Ocean.

"Today we have arrested 10 fighters belonging to the Islamic Courts Union who were masquerading as refugees and wanted to come to the country," a local police commander Anthony Kibuchi told journalists in Garissa town.

Witnesses in Kismayo say several thousand Islamist fighters simply disappeared on Monday, after Ethiopian artillery pounded their front-line positions the night before in the town of Jilib, 120 kilometers to Kismayo.

The arrests follow a request from the Somali transitional government which had urged Kenya to shut its long and porous border to Islamists who were fleeing Kismayo and arrest any who crossed over.

"We request the Kenyan government to close its border since the remnants of the defeated Islamic Courts led by (Sheikh) Hassan Dahir Aweys are heading towards the Kenyan border," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said.

"If they sneak into Kenya , we urge the Kenyan government to arrest them and hand them over," Dinari added.

Kenya said its troops along the common frontier were on high alert to prevent fleeing radicals from entering the country.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said in a statement that all measures had been taken to ensure that there would be no spillover of the conflict in neighboring Somalia into Kenya.

"All measures have been taken by the Kenyan government to ensure there will be no spillover of the conflict in Somalia into Kenya," Mutua said in a statement issued late Monday.

"The government has put the necessary security measures in place along the common border with Somalia and the forces are on alert," he added.

"In a situation such as the one happening in Somalia, anyone who ventures to enter Kenya will have to go through a very serious vetting process. Kenya cannot be a haven for people who are not wanted by their lawful government."

Kenya 's President Mwai Kibaki said he would convene an urgent regional summit in the new year to discuss the unfolding situation in the Horn of African nation which has been without central rule for 16 years.

Source: Xinhua