Kenya steps up border patrol in pursuit of Somali Islamists

The Kenyan police combed camps on Monday on the northeastern border with Somalia in search for remnants of Somalia's Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), who have fled to Kenya.

Kenyan authorities said they would expel five members of the Somali transitional parliament, who condemned Ethiopian military operations in Somalia at a recent news briefing.

Police sources said that they have arrested several Islamists, including Abukar Omar, a leader of the Islamic Courts, which were recently routed out of Somalia.

Abukar, a prominent Mogadishu businessman and Islamist ally, was arrested last week with his son while hiding at a friend's residence in the border town of Liboi.

Kenyan government last week identified 26 members of Somalia's parliament staying in Kenya who, according to the Kenyan government, are acting against Somalia's best interests.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju would not specify what those actions were, but said the legislators must be sent back to Somalia immediately.

"We think it is inappropriate to have members of that government tearing it to pieces from another country," said Tuju.

"We sincerely believe that, as members of parliament, they should go to their parliament, they should differ in their parliament, they should complain in their parliament," he added.

Police sources also said they have arrested four members of the Oromo Liberation Front Movement from Ethiopia believed to be supporting the Islamists in Somalia.

The four were intercepted late Sunday near Dadaab refugee camp in northeastern Kenya, a few kilometers from the Kenya-Ethiopia border.

The police said the four are being detained pending further investigations and may be charged for being in Kenya illegally.

Meanwhile, at least two people were killed and over 10 others were injured in a demonstration over the weekend in Mogadishu in protest against the presence of Ethiopian forces that back the transitional government, and against the government's disarmament decision.

Ethiopian and Somali forces fired bullets in the air in order to disperse the demonstrators, who responded by shooting and setting car tires ablaze, eyewitnesses said.

The irate protestors insisted that they would not hand their firearms to governmental forces, pushing the transitional government to put the forcible disarmament process in the capital on the back burner sine die.

The firearm handover time limit was supposed to come to a close on Thursday, but the governmental call has not largely been complied with.

The presence of Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu has sparked street protests but relative calm returned Sunday, a day after a teenage boy was killed in a demonstration to denounce their stay and a now-postponed disarmament drive.

Source: Xinhua