Police in Kenya carried out raids on two mosques in the country's main coastal city Mombasa in an operation that killed one person and resulted in 251 arrests, according to Reuters.
Those arrested were 251 youths who had been camping in Mussa and Sakina mosques and receiving militant training, Reuters reported.
Police said that one man was shot dead at the Mussa mosque when he tried to throw a grenade at officers, according to Reuters.
Kenyan troops have been sent to Somalia as a part of an African Union peacekeeping force, Reuters reported.
Al Shabaab was behind a bloody 2013 attack on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall, and has vowed to drive the Kenyan and other African soldiers out, according to Reuters. Al-Shabab, which means "The Youth" in Arabic, says it is an ally of al-Qaeda and is believed to have between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters.
Police said the Monday raids netted eight grenades and a pistol, and authorities said more than 500 security personnel took part in the raids, Reuters reported.
The police said the person killed had tried to throw a grenade at them as they moved into the Masjid Musa mosque, a place of worship that officials say also harbors radical Muslims, according to Reuters.
"These mosques have been notorious for radicalising our youth and recruiting them into al Shabaab," Nelson Marwa, commissioner responsible for administering Mombasa County, told Reuters.
The police also accused the Kenyan Muslims of using the Masjid Musa and Shakinah mosques to store weapons, BBC News reported.
Mombasa police official Geoffrey Mayek called the raids a "breakthrough" for police intelligence, Reuters reported. Officials say that some Kenyan Muslims have links with the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab.
The mosque raids have been called unfair by Muslim civil rights groups, according to Reuters.
The advocated said the police who conducted the raids were targeting Muslims unfairly in a mainly Christian Kenya, Reuters reported.
