Kenyan opposition demands troops withdrawal

Kenya's opposition leaders yesterday called on the country to withdraw its troops from Somalia after a spate of bloody attacks by militants at home, but dropped a demand for talks with the government.

Before the opposition rally began, police fired tear gas at protesters who chanted slogans against President Uhuru Kenyatta and clambered over statues in Nairobi's streets.

But the rally proceeded calmly, after many Kenyans had feared it would stoke tensions in a nation battling an upsurge in political violence. In the latest assaults on Saturday, gunmen killed at least 29 people at two locations on the coast.

Somali Islamist group al-Shabab said it carried out those and other attacks, vowing to drive Kenyan and other African Union forces out of Somalia. The government has blamed local politicians instead, drawing angry denials from the opposition.

"Time for talks is over," opposition leader and veteran politician Raila Odinga said.

Among a list of demands issued at the rally, the opposition called on the government to take "immediate steps to withdraw our gallant soldiers from Somalia".

Government officials had dismissed the opposition's demand for talks, saying the place for discussion was in parliament. They have also repeatedly said Kenya will not withdraw from Somalia.

Officials and police had until recently routinely blamed the Somali group al-Shabab for strikes on Kenyan soil, including a raid on a Nairobi shopping mall last year that killed 67 people.

But after attacks on the coast last month that killed about 65 people, the president dismissed al-Shabab's claim and instead pointed the finger at local political networks.

• About 500 families in the northern coastal region of Kenya have fled to nearby camps or left the area after gunmen killed 29 people over the weekend, Kenya Red Cross said, the latest in a series of deadly attacks in Lamu County.

Gunmen attacked government offices, torched a church and executed men in two small towns in the county on Saturday night.

About 65 people were killed in two similar raids last month in Mpeketoni town and a nearby Lvillage, in the same county.