Two in US embassy car shot dead in Nairobi

NAIROBI, Jan 27 (Reuters) Carjackers with AK-47s shot dead two women in a US embassy vehicle in Nairobi's western outskirts today, and police killed two of the fleeing gunmen during a shootout in nearby bush.

Police spokesman Gideon Kibunjah said two policemen were also shot and wounded as they chased the gunmen after the midday carjacking on the main highway in the Kenyan capital, bitterly nicknamed ''Nairobbery'' by its residents.

Gangsters driving a stolen vehicle had stopped in front of a black four-wheel drive with diplomatic plates issued to the United States and ordered the five occupants out, he said.

''There was a person who was driving and an elderly lady who took too long to get out of the vehicle and the gangsters shot them and threw them out,'' Kibunjah said. ''The two were confirmed dead on arrival at the hospital.'' This is the fourth criminal attack in less than a year in Kenya on diplomats or their families and the second involving the US diplomatic community.

A United States embassy spokeswoman said she could make no immediate comment. In Washington, a State Department official said he was aware of the report but had no details.

Carjackings are common in Nairobi but are far more likely to happen at night, when attackers set obstructions on the road and hold people up for their wallets, mobile phones and cars.

In September, a US embassy official was shot in the chest, while a month earlier the Russian ambassador was stabbed while on the roadside attending to a sick grandchild. A Danish diplomat's eye was gouged out in another attack.

'THEY WERE MY VISITORS' Television footage from the scene showed three white people an elderly man, a teenage boy and woman standing at the scene where the two bodies had been covered. ''They shot my sister and my mother,'' the woman said.

An elderly Kenyan man, identified by residents as church elder Humphrey Mwaura Ruhang'a, wept and fell to the ground next to one of the victims. He told reporters: ''They were my visitors.'' The driver of the first stolen vehicle was found at the scene, bound hand and foot in the back among potatoes spilled from a sack.

''They took me while I was coming from prayers,'' the man, who identified himself only as a local pastor, told reporters.

Soon after the fatal shootings, the gunmen dumped the diplomatic vehicle and its easily identifiable red plates. Kibunjah said it was a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, a luxury SUV and favourite target of carjackers in the east African country.

There have been no arrests yet but two AK-47s were recovered, Kibunjah said.

Kenya's police, who patrol with assault rifles, generally give no quarter to armed criminals and shoot-outs are common.

Internal Security Minister John Michuki last year issued a controversial ''shoot-to-kill'' order against armed criminals, many of whom have automatic weapons that have flooded Kenya for years from conflicts in neighbouring Somalia and Sudan.

The shootings took place in Kinoo, a village-like western suburb of Nairobi on the road to resort towns like Naivasha favoured by city dwellers for weekend getaways.

The formerly rural area has been encroached by the city's rapid expansion and is a mix of urban congestion and countryside farming plots.

REUTERS SY MIR RAI2311