ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)

STORY: Hundreds of protesters smashed cars and torched churches in the Kenyan city of Mombasa on Monday after unknown gunmen shot dead a Muslim cleric accused by the United States of helping Islamist militants in Somalia.

Deputy Police Chief Robert Kitur said Aboud Rogo Mohammed was killed while driving a private van. His wife was injured.

The vehicle appeared strewn with bullet holes following the attack.

One protester was killed in the riots which erupted after Rogo's death, as youths from the port city's large Muslim population took to the streets complaining he had been deliberately targeted by police.

In what police described as an act of impulse rather than a planned strategy to target Christians, protesters tried to burn down two churches, setting furniture on fire before the flames were extinguished. They vandalized at least four other churches, breaking chairs and damaging an altar.

Protesters also set alight a government vehicle and stoned cars along the main highway linking Mombasa to Mali, both popular tourist destinations, and burnt tires to block the road.

Police fired rubber bullets in the air and tear gas to disperse the protesters.