Police battle satanic cult members in Nairobi after beheadings

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

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Perilous Times, False Religions and Cults

Police battle satanic cult members in Nairobi after beheadings*

POSTED: 1430 GMT (2230 HKT), June 7, 2007

Story Highlights
• 10 people killed in Nairobi, Kenya, Thursday, 22 eariler in hunt for
outlawed cult
• Mungiki sect said to terrorize Kenyans, leaving string of beheaded corpses
• Fears that Mungiki members are out to disrupt elections in December
• Leaflets allegedly circulated by the group call on youth to join,
prepare for uprising

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Gunbattles erupted in a Nairobi slum Thursday,
killing at least 10 people, as police conducted house-to-house searches
for members of an outlawed satanic cult accused of terrorizing Kenyans
and leaving behind a string of beheaded corpses.

An Associated Press reporter saw 10 corpses in the Mathare shantytown,
considered a stronghold for the Mungiki sect. Police sealed off the slum
and rounded up more than 100 people, ordering them to kneel on the
ground as gunshots whizzed by.

Paramilitary police have been swarming Mathare all week after two police
officers were killed in a shooting blamed on the Mungiki. Authorities
killed 22 people and arrested more than 100 Monday night and early Tuesday.

Mungiki was inspired by the 1950s Mau Mau uprising against British rule
but has become a street gang linked to murder, political violence and
extortion. The group is suspected in the deaths of at least 20 people in
the past three months, including 12 found mutilated or beheaded since May.

The bloodshed has raised fears that Mungiki members are out to disrupt
elections in December, when President Mwai Kibaki will seek a second term.

Leaflets allegedly circulated by the group call on Kenyan youth to join
and prepare for an uprising against the government. The leaflet includes
a threat that "If one youth is killed we shall kill 10 police."

Mungiki claims to have thousands of adherents, all drawn from the
Kikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe.

Members of the group, whose name means "multitude" in the Kikuyu
language, traditionally wear dreadlocks, inspired by the Mau Mau who
wore them as a symbol of anti-colonialism and their determination not to
conform to Western norms. In recent years, however, many Mungiki have
shaved their heads, believing dreadlocks are too conspicuous.

Sect members pray facing Mount Kenya, which the Kikuyu believe to be the
home of their supreme deity. The group also encourages female genital
mutilation and using tobacco snuff.

Mungiki was outlawed in 2002 after at least 20 people were killed in
fighting between it and another gang called the Taliban, whose members
come from the Luo tribe of western Kenya.