Kenyan rush-hour blast kills one, hurts 37

By Andrew Cawthorne and Jeremy Clarke

NAIROBI (Reuters) - An apparent bomb blast in a Nairobi street on Monday killed one person, injured dozens and left a severed leg hanging from a shattered window.

A senior policeman at the scene said the explosion, which also left a mangled corpse in the street and sent passersby flying through the air, appeared to be a suicide bombing.

"This sort of attack is very unusual for Nairobi," he said.

Witnesses saw a man with a package running down the road moments before the blast at around 8 a.m. (0500 GMT), and said the body they saw after the blast was his.

Although considered a relatively peaceful country in a volatile region, Kenya was hit by large bomb blasts in 1998 and 2002 that were blamed on al Qaeda.

Kenyan police said in a statement they were "pursuing promising leads," and local media said a taxi driver thought to have ferried the attacker was among more than a dozen witnesses helping officers with their enquiries.

Suspicion could fall on militant Islamists from neighboring Somalia or members of the criminal Mungiki gang that has been wreaking havoc in Kenya for the last month.

The blast occurred during rush hour near the Ambassadeur hotel and a restaurant in the packed central business district. It shattered shop windows and damaged a nearby bus.

"We saw a person rushing towards a City Hoppa bus, then it was as if he changed his mind and rushed back," said witness Jane Muna, who added that the man looked Asian or Arab.

"He was carrying a small carton. I think he was trying to run into the restaurant with the box but I saw it explode at the door. I saw about eight people lying on the ground."

FLYING GLASS

Local KTN television, however, said a man carrying a grenade was killed when it exploded as he tried to board a bus going to Nairobi's international airport.

Some torn papers with English and Arabic script from the Koran were found at the scene, witnesses said. Anti-terrorism officers in white gloves scoured the area for clues.

The blast sent the Kenyan shilling down to 67.15/25 to the U.S. dollar from 66.40/50 on Friday. "The market is anxious about what the bomb portends," said one dealer, Raphael Owino.

At Nairobi's Kenyatta Hospital, where blast victims were distinguished from other patients by a white sticker on their foreheads, staff said 37 people were hurt, four critically.