Kenyan police shot dead three suspected militants linked to a separatist movement, the latest outbreak of violence in Kenya's popular tourist coastal region, police said Monday. "Three suspects were shot dead in the confrontation, while four have been arrested," regional police chief Aggrey Adoli said of the overnight clash Sunday in a district of Mombasa, Kenya's main port. The men were linked to the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), which has called for the separation of the coastal region from the rest of Kenya, police said. Police raided the suspects' house after reports the men were plotting to attack a police station, local police commander Julius Wanjohi said. "We acted on a tip-off that the attackers were going to raid a police post... they resisted arrest and tried to attack the police, and that is when the three were shot dead," he said. The MRC was outlawed in 2010, a decision that was overturned earlier this year by a court ruling. The Kenyan authorities, who continue to say the group is guilty of criminal activities and who want to outlaw it once again, had most of its top officials arrested in October.
