Kenya said Monday that 15 people were killed in gang violence in the past two days in the first security test for the government of newly-elected President Mwai Kibaki.
The killings in the central town of Nakuru came less than a week after Kibaki was sworn in following a largely peaceful election campaign that marked the end of President Daniel arap Moi's 24-year rule.
Members of the Mungiki sect, a banned quasi-religious group, clashed with residents in the town of Nakuru in one of the worst outbreaks of violence in Kenya since members of the gang hacked more than 20 people to death last March.
Clashes broke out after residents attempted to eject Mungiki gangs from bus stations, accusing them of running protection rackets that force them to pay higher fares.
Newly-appointed national security minister Chris Murungaru said residents had sought to chase away the Mungiki, having associated them with the KANU party, which suffered a crushing defeat at the polls after 39 years in power.
"The new government will not tolerate private militias who threaten peace," Murungaru told a news conference.
Murungaru said Mungiki killed nine people in Nakuru, 85 miles northwest of the capital Nairobi, on Sunday and another person in another town near the city Monday.
He said police killed two members of Mungiki on Sunday and arrested 38 members of the group which espouses what it describes as traditional beliefs of the Kikuyu, Kenya's biggest tribe. Police said three other people later died in hospital.
Residents, who later held street demonstrations in Nakuru town to protest against the killings, said Mungiki members were breaking into houses and slashing people indiscriminately at night.
"I had my children saying dad Mungiki is coming close the door. But they broke the door and slashed me in the head and cut my hand," said one man recovering in a hospital bed.
Officials said they had instructed police to shoot any Mungiki member on sight.
"I am telling the police that any Mungiki found on the way please, please, do not spare anybody, kill them and shoot them," said Peter Raburu, a senior government administrator for the Nakuru region.
Mungiki was outlawed in March 2002 after its mostly unemployed and dreadlocked members hacked to death more than 20 people using knives and clubs in a Nairobi slum.
The group continued to operate and was perceived by some Kenyans to be associated with Moi's KANU party after it said it was supporting the party's presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta, who lost to Kibaki at the polls.