One dead in Kenyan capital grenade attack: police

NAIROBI (AFP) - A grenade attack killed one person in a Somali suburb of the Kenyan capital on Friday, on the eve of a visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the city, police said.

"We confirm one fatality, it is too early to tell if there are others," police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told AFP, adding that the attack took place in Nairobi's Eastleigh neighbourhood.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, the latest in a string of attacks in Kenya.

Clinton, on an 11-day, seven-nation Africa tour, is due to travel to Kenya on Saturday, where she is due to meet with Kenyan leaders and officials from Somalia's government, which is preparing to end its mandate later this month.

Kenya has suffered a spate of grenade attacks, shootings and bomb blasts since sending troops into southern Somalia in October to crush Islamist bases there, prompting warnings of revenge attacks by the Al-Qaeda linked fighters.

In June, attackers in the border garrison town of Garissa carried out Kenya's worst attack in a decade, when they targeted worshippers as they held Sunday prayer services, killing 18.

Somalia's weak and Western-backed transitional government is due wrap up on August 20 after eight years of infighting and minimal progress, to be replaced by a new system chosen through a United Nations-backed process.

Nairobi's Eastleigh district is home to thousands of Kenyan ethnic Somalis, as well as Somalis who have fled more than two decades of war in their nation.