Seven Bangladeshi sailors, held hostage by Somali pirates for almost four years, finally returned home Thursday, saying it was "unbelievable" to be alive and describing their ordeal as "like hell."

The sailors, who had been held in dire conditions and suffered beatings, flew into the Bangladeshi capital after the foreign ministry said they were freed last week after lengthy negotiations. 

A police official in Kenya said Tuesday unknown gunmen shot and killed the chairman of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya.

A Mombasa police commander, Henry Ondiek, said the motive behind the killing of Sheikh Mohamed Idris was not known. He was shot Tuesday as he left a mosque.

Kenyan police said Monday they faced an angry mob in the country's northeast after two suspected "terrorists" were killed at the weekend near the Somali border.

The two men were shot dead Saturday night after trying to force their way through a barricade near Mandera, a small border town. A third man in their vehicle managed to escape, the local police chief, Noah Mwivanda, told AFP.

The leader of South Sudan's rebels, former vice president Riek Machar, is in Nairobi for talks on regional efforts to end his country's nearly six-month-old civil war, officials said Friday.

Machar met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday and was set for more talks on Friday, rebel spokesman Mabior Garang told Agence France Presse.

At least 11 people have been killed and several others wounded in fighting between rival clans in Wajir in Kenya's remote northeast, police said Friday.

The fighting broke out on Thursday when the attackers raided a settlement of the local Degodia clan. Kenyan media reports said the attack was believed to have been carried out by a militia from the rival Garre clan.

Two Kenyan soldiers were killed Monday when militants from Somalia's Shebab rebels ambushed a military convoy near Lamu on the Kenya-Somalia border, reports said.

The soldiers were attacked while transporting food supplies to a military camp across the border, the Nation newspaper said, adding that several other soldiers were also wounded.

Hundreds of Somalis have been expelled from Kenya, with 98 in the latest batch detained and sent back in a major crackdown on suspected Islamists, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Friday.

The crackdown, which has seen people held in police cells or a football stadium, follows a spate of attacks in Kenya by suspected supporters of Somalia's al-Qaida-linked Shebab rebels.

Hundreds of Somalis have been expelled from Kenya, with 98 in the latest batch detained and sent back in a major crackdown on suspected Islamists, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Friday.

The crackdown, which has seen people held in police cells or a football stadium, follows a spate of attacks in Kenya by suspected supporters of Somalia's al-Qaida-linked Shebab rebels.

Somalia's al-Qaida linked Shebab vowed Thursday to move their war to neighboring Kenya, in a broadcast by a top commander urging fighters to rise up against Nairobi.

Kenyan troops are battling the hardline Islamists inside Somalia and the insurgents have already launched scores of bombings and killings in revenge, but the Shebab threat comes amid fresh security warnings of the risk of attacks in Kenya.

Over 100 people were arrested in the Kenyan capital on Tuesday, police said, as student protests over a fee increase descended into running battles with riot police.

The demonstrations were largely peaceful in the morning but quickly turned violent as the huge crowd of students from various universities disrupted traffic and robbed several motorists.