Hardline Kenyan Muslim Cleric Shot Dead

A hardline Kenyan Muslim cleric was shot dead in the port city of Mombasa on Tuesday, said an Agence France Presse reporter who saw his bloody corpse, as rioting erupted in response.

It was not clear who had killed Abubaker Shariff Ahmed, better known as Makaburi, who was on U.N. sanctions lists accused of being a "leading facilitator and recruiter of young Kenyan Muslims for violent militant activity in Somalia", and for having "strong ties" with senior members of Somalia's Al-Shebab Islamist insurgency.

Senior police officer in Mombasa Richard Ngatia confirmed Makaburi, a vocal supporter of al-Qaida, had been killed by "unknown assailants".

Police fired into the air to push back furious supporters of the cleric, as family members came to identify the body.

The firebrand cleric had praised the suicide commandos who stormed Nairobi's Westgate mall in September, massacring at least 67 in a four-day siege.

Another young man was also shot dead alongside Makaburi, in circumstances that were not immediately clear.

Makaburi, dressed in white robes, had been shot in the chest.

Previous killings of clerics have sparked deadly riots, with supporters clashing with the police.

In August 2012, radical preacher Aboud Rogo Mohammed was gunned down, and in October last year his successor, Sheikh Ibrahim Ismail, met the same fate on a road near Mombasa, again sparking riots.

Many of the clerics' supporters accuse the Kenyan authorities of being behind the killings, claims that officials have repeatedly denied.

In an interview with Agence France Presse last month, Makaburi said he was resigned to being killed. "My life is in danger. They will eventually kill me. They do that," he said.