Tuesday, September 24, 2013

2 American's And 1 Brit Woman Among Terrorists, Says Kenya Foreign Minister

Kenyan troops are in "control" of Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall three days after a deadly siege by Islamists, who, according to Kenya's foreign minister, include "two to three Americans" and a British woman. As the interior ministry said early Tuesday that all hostages trapped by the

militants are believed to have been freed, Kenyan foreign minister Amina Mohamed underlined the global scope of the attack.

Somalia's al Qaeda-linked Shabab insurgents have claimed the attack, which began midday on Saturday when the armed militants marched into the complex, tossed grenades and fired automatic weapons and sent panicked shoppers fleeing.

A government spokesman told AFP the siege, in which the attackers massacred at least 62 shoppers and staff, was close to being declared over. He said special forces combing the building were no longer encountering any resistance.

"Our special forces are inside the building checking the rooms. We think that everyone, the hostages, have been evacuated, but we don't want to take any chances," Manoah Esipisu said.

"The special forces call this sanitising. At the moment they have not met any resistance, but of course we are not ruling out the possibility that there are a couple of them hiding in a remote room or corner," he added.

"We're in control of Westgate," the interior ministry said in a message on Twitter. Throughout the night the area around the mall was quiet, with security personnel either moving or appearing relaxed.

No details on the numbers of hostages released have been given, but 63 people were earlier recorded missing by the Red Cross, a figure thought to include hostages as well as those possibly killed.

The foreign minister, Amina Mohamed, said in an interview with the Public Broadcasting Service's "NewsHour" program that the Americans were 18 to 19 years old, of Somali or Arab origin and lived "in Minnesota and one other place" in the US.

Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabab group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which began at lunchtime on Saturday. Kenyan officials say there were 10 to 15 attackers.

It had said on its Twitter feed that it has many times warned Kenya's government that failure to remove its forces from Somalia "would have severe consequences." The group claimed that its gunmen had killed 100 people, but its assertions are often exaggerated.

"The attack at #WestgateMall is just a very tiny fraction of what Muslims in Somalia experience at the hands of Kenyan invaders," al-Shabab said.

Another tweet said: "For long we have waged war against the Kenyans in our land, now it's time to shift the battleground and take the war to their land #Westgate."

US President Barack Obama offered US support, saying he believed Kenya - the scene of one of al Qaeda's first major attacks, in 1998, and a neighbour of chaotic Somalia - would continue to be a regional pillar of stability.

Kenyan security forces believed the end was in sight for the siege at the upmarket shopping mall in the capital, saying its forces were "in control" as the ordeal entered its fourth day.

A government official said there was no resistance from the attackers late on Monday night after a barrage of gunfire and blasts throughout the day, but that the security forces were cautious in case some attackers were hiding in the building.

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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Monday, September 23, 2013

The Kenya Terror : 68 Killed In Shopping Mall Attack, Situation Still Tense

NAIROBI: Heavy and rapid bursts of gunfire were heard coming from inside Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall at dawn on Monday, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

A Kenyan security source confirmed that an assault against al-Qaida-linked Somali gunmen inside the complex was underway.

The AFP correspondent said he heard about 15 minutes of fierce gunfire which then subsided. An AFP photographer at the scene said troops posted around the mall ducked for cover.

The photographer said it was "sounded as if the shots were coming from somewhere around the mall, or were being fired from a vantage point in the mall."
The Kenyan army had said it had isolated the Islamist attackers, who stormed the complex at midday on Saturday, killing at least 68 people and taking hostages.

Shebab rebels said its fighters had carried out the attack in retaliation for Kenya's military intervention in Somalia, where African Union troops are battling the Islamist.

Earlier, security and intelligence sources told AFP that Israeli agents were also assisting in the operation. Kenya's National Disaster Operation Centre said a "major engagement" with the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab fighters was in process.

"Our concern is to rescue all hostages alive and that is why the operation is delicate," the Kenya defence forces said in its latest update. It did not say how many people were being held by the dozen-or-so attackers.

"All efforts are underway to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion," it said, adding four of its soldiers were wounded in what appeared to be the final efforts to secure the mall, which is popular with wealthy Kenyans and expatriates.

"The criminals are now all located in one place within the building," Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a speech to the nation.

"They shall not get away with their despicable and beastly acts," Kenyatta said in an emotional speech, in which he announced he had lost a nephew and his nephew's fiancee in the attack. "We will punish the masterminds swiftly, and indeed very painfully."

Kenyatta said more than 1,000 people were rescued, and that he had also received "numerous offers of assistance from friendly countries".

A Kenyan security source said Israelis "are rescuing the hostages and the injured". The Israeli foreign ministry refused to confirm or deny its agents were involved, although a Western intelligence official confirmed the Israelis were playing a frontline role.

British and US agents were also at the scene, the source said.

Terrified witnesses told of scenes of horror and panic as the masked gunmen tossed grenades and sprayed automatic gunfire in the packed centre around midday on Saturday, sending panicked shoppers and staff fleeing or diving for cover.

Officials estimated some 200 people have been wounded, and the Red Cross made a nationwide appeal for blood donors.

Police sources who had entered the building on Sunday evening said they feared that death toll, now confirmed at 68, "could be much, much higher ... judging from the bodies sighted inside."

Somalia's al-Shabaab rebels said the carnage was in retaliation for Kenya's military intervention in Somalia, where African Union troops are battling the Islamists.

"If you want Kenya in peace, it will not happen as long as your boys are in our lands," al-Shabaab spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said in a statement.

The group also issued a string of statements via Twitter, one of them claiming that Muslims in the centre had been "escorted out by the Mujahideen before beginning the attack".

Witnesses have confirmed that the gunmen were trying to weed out non-Muslims for execution by interrogating people on their faith.

The dead also included three Britons, two French women, two Canadians including a diplomat, a Chinese woman, a South Korean, a South African and a Dutch woman, according to their governments. Also killed was Ghanaian poet and former UN envoy Kofi Awoonor, 78, while his son was injured.

Mall worker Zipporah Wanjiru, who emerged from the ordeal alive but in a state of shock, said she hid under a table with five other colleagues.

"They were shooting indiscriminately, it was like a movie seeing people sprayed with bullets like that," she said, bursting into tears. "I have never witnessed this in my life."

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