Kenya arrests coastal attack suspects

Nairobi (AFP) - Kenyan authorities announced Wednesday they have arrested 13 alleged separatists suspected of planning more attacks in the country's coastal region.

An interior ministry statement said those detained were plotting "ethnic cleansing" attacks and were members of the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), a coastal separatist group.

In a brief statement, the ministry said "13 MRC members suspected to have been planning an ethnic cleansing attack similar to Mpeketoni have been arrested in Kiunga area, Lamu County."

"They are suspected to have been planning an attack in four areas, Witu, Kipini, Marereni and Garsen, all in the coastal region," it said.

The arrests follow last week's massacres over two consecutive nights in the town of Mpeketoni and a nearby village that claimed nearly 60 lives. Another attack this week left at least five dead, officials said.

Despite an immediate claim of responsibility from the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab for the Mpeketoni attack, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has blamed "local political networks" along with an "opportunist network of other criminal gangs".

The attackers appeared to target Mpeketoni because the town is a mainly Christian settlement in the Muslim-majority coastal region, having been settled decades ago by the Kikuyu people, the same tribe as Kenyatta.