Somalia's hardline al Shabaab rebels threatened on Thursday to attack neighbouring Kenya following a crackdown on Somalis in the capital Nairobi, according to a recording posted on an al Shabaab Web site.

Islamist al Shabaab has threatened to attack Kenya before, although anger has been rising over the past week among the Somali community since Kenyan security forces detained hundreds of Somalis living in a Nairobi suburb.

"God willing we will arrive in Nairobi, we will enter Nairobi, God willing we will enter ... when we arrive we will hit, hit until we kill, weapons we have, praise be to God, they are enough," men chanted in a recording nearly seven minutes long. They sang in Swahili and another man spoke in Arabic.

The crackdown followed a violent protest in Nairobi against the detention of Jamaican Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, who was jailed in Britain for urging his audiencies to kill Jews, Hindus and Westerners.

Many of the protesters were Somalis and some waved a black flag identified with al Shabaab, a group seen by Washington as al Qaeda's proxy in the Horn of Africa nation.

Reclusive al Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, also known as Sheik Mukhtar Abdirahman Abu Zubeyr, was introduced on the recording by the men chanting.

The man they introduced as Abu Zubeyr called on Muslims in several sub-Saharan African countries to wage jihad, or holy war, against "infidels" and to destroy their interests around the world.

"Our brothers in Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda and Chad, you have a chance to join the jihad in the name of Allah. Don't you know whoever does not join the jihad today, will never join?" the man said in Arabic.

"If we live on or die, we are between two victories

Reuters.com