At least one person was killed and dozens injured Monday by a morning rush hour blast in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, suspected to be the work of a suicide bomber.
The explosion occurred a few hundred metres from where a massive bomb ripped through the US embassy in 1998, killing 213 people in an attack claimed by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
Police and aid officials said they believed Monday's blast in front of a restaurant near the Ambassadeur Hotel in central Nairobi was carried out by a suicide bomber who was the only fatality.
"It was a bomb explosion and body parts have been thrown apart," policeman Gabriel Omondi told AFP, while Moses Muchoki of the Kenyan Red Cross said: "I can confirm one dead. He is a suspected suicide bomber."
One eyewitness, Joshua Kinyanjui, 30, said he had seen two men walking together, one of them carrying a bag. "There was an explosion, one guy was blown up, the other one fell down next to him," he said.
An AFP correspondent said shredded pages of a Koran were strewn around the site, although it was not immediately clear if they were linked to the blast.
A spokesman for Kenyatta National Hospital, Herman Wabomba, said doctors had received 36 injured, while four others were treated at Nairobi hospital.
National police spokesman Eric Karaithe said most of the injuries were caused by flying glass from the shattered windscreen of a nearby commuter bus.
"Doctors have confirmed that none of the injuries is life threatening," he said.
A senior police official, who declined to be identified, said the explosion carried "all the hallmarks" of a suicide bomber, but Kiraithe stressed the precise cause had yet to be determined.
"Initial investigations show that the source of the explosion was extremely small ... No traces of combustion or high explosives were detected from the scene," Kiraithe said.
After the explosion, security officers cordoned off the area, as police on horseback struggled to keep back the large crowds gathered at the blast site.
Kenya has been on alert since January when the government said suspected Islamist fighters, accused of links to extremist groups, had fled fighting in Somalia.
East Africa has seen several Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist attacks in recent years, including the near-simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, killing a total of 224 people and injuring some 5,000.
Al-Qaeda-affiliated attackers bombed an Israeli-owned resort hotel near Mombasa in November 2002, killing 15 civilians and three presumed suicide bombers, and unsuccessfully attempted to shoot down an Israeli airliner there on the same day.
In January, the United States warned its citizens in Kenya of possible reprisals by terrorist groups after Somalia's Islamists were ousted.
The explosion came after weeks of violence by the politically-linked sect called Mungiki, which is currently facing a crackdown following the killing of two police officers.
Police have so far killed at least 38 Mungiki suspects, in a series of raids, mostly focused on Nairobi's slum areas.
Source : www.turkishpress.com
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