NAIROBI (AP): The death toll in street clashes between Kenyan police and members of an outlawed gang has reached 13, a mortuary official said Tuesday.

A notorious criminal gang called the Mungiki protested Monday in Nairobi's slums and several other towns after their imprisoned leader's wife was found beheaded last week. Gang members exchanged gunfire with police and put up blazing roadblocks.

The violence was an unsettling reminder of Kenya's fragile peace after the country's deadly postelection crisis earlier this year.

Twelve bodies with gunshot wounds from the protests were brought to Nairobi's city mortuary, said an attendant there who saw the bodies but did not want his name used because he is not authorized to speak to the media. A police official, who also did not want his name used, said a 13th person was fatally shot overnight in sweeps through the slums.

The violence started before dawn Monday in Nairobi's slums and several other towns. The Mungiki has vowed to take its fight nationwide unless the gang leader is released.

``This is lawlessness and sheer madness,'' Joseph Kanyiri, a district commissioner in Nairobi, told The Associated Press on Monday. He said the fighting was gang-related, and not connected to the Dec. 27 election that unleashed weeks of bloodshed and tarnished Kenya's reputation for stability in a region that includes war-ravaged Somalia and Sudan.

But the bloodshed, if it continues, poses a challenge to Kenya's new power-sharing government, which was formed amid growing international pressure after more than 1,000 people were killed in the wake of the disputed presidential election.

On Monday, gangsters were exchanging gunfire with police just feet from makeshift tent camps where some of the country's 300,000 displaced are still living.

In Nairobi's Dandora slum _ infamous for a sprawling, environmentally disastrous waste dump _ 13-year-old Dorian Opio peeked out the gates of her primary school on Monday as riot police fired live bullets and tear gas down alleyways. A flaming police station next door sent black smoke billowing into the air.

``I don't know if I should walk home,'' Opio said, fiddling with the strap on her backpack. ``I think maybe I should go. All the other students left but I don't know how I'll get there.''

Members of the Mungiki, an outlawed sect linked to a string of beheadings, held protests in several cities across the country _ including Nairobi's slums and the western town of Naivasha, which were scenes of some of the worst postelection violence in January and February.

The protesters demanded the release of their leader, Maina Njenga, from prison, and accused police of being behind the death of Njenga's wife and the gang's acting leader last week.

``We will not stop demonstrating,'' Joe Waiganjo of the Kenya National Youth Alliance, the political wing of the Mungiki, told the AP. He said the group is planning protests across the country in coming days.

National police spokesman Eric Kiraithe denied any police involvement in the killings.

``That is totally false accusations. Why do the police want to kill this woman?'' he asked. ``If we are interested in the wife of the criminal, we would have taken her to court.''

Mungiki emerged in the 1990s, inspired by the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule. The group is believed to have thousands of adherents, all drawn from the Kikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe. In recent years, Mungiki, whose name means ``multitude'' in the Kikuyu language, has been linked to extortion, murder and political violence.

The violence comes at a precarious time in Kenya. President Mwai Kibaki named opposition leader Raila Odinga as prime minister Sunday, implementing a long-awaited power-sharing deal aimed at resolving the country's political crisis. Observers said the Dec. 27 election was so flawed it is impossible to tell who won.

The deal marks the first time Kenya will have both a president and prime minister. But the working relationship between Kibaki and Odinga, which has been frosty in the past, will determine how long the coalition lasts.