Kenya will deport jailed Jamaican Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal "without delay" after a protest against his detention triggered battles with police in the capital Nairobi, a minister said on Saturday.
Kenyan security forces used live rounds, tear gas and dogs to quell the demonstration on Friday near a downtown mosque used by many Somalis who have fled years of violence at home.
Internal Security Minister George Saitoti appealed for calm. He blamed "violent foreign elements from a neighboring country" for the mayhem and assured Muslims in Kenya they would not be targeted and their civil liberties respected.
The violence in Nairobi has stoked fears of a crackdown on the large Somali community in Kenya, or strikes by insurgent sympathizers in east Africa's biggest economy -- the target of successful al Qaeda-linked attacks in 2002 and 1998.
Some protesters carried the black flag of hardline Somali rebels al Shabaab, a group Washington accuses of links to al Qaeda that is trying to overthrow Somalia's Western-backed government and impose its own harsh version of sharia law.
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