NAIROBI, kenya — Kenyan security forces swept into an upscale Nairobi mall late Sunday night in an effort to end a two-day standoff with heavily armed assailants that left 68 dead, and most of the hostages were rescued, according to officials.
Al-Shabab, the Somali militia linked to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in Kenya since the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings. Another 175 people were injured, while up to 30 people had been held hostage.
“Most of the hostages have been released, and the Kenya Defence Forces has taken control of most parts of the building,” Col. Cyrus Oguna, a Kenyan military spokesman, told the television station KTN, according to Reuters. He did not say how many hostages had been held or freed.
Terrorism experts said the assault showed surprising levels of operational planning and tactical sophistication for a militant group that had been riven by infighting and had lost much of the territory it once held in Somalia.
“The attack is more likely to be a first salvo of a reinvigorated al-Shabab than the last gasp of a defeated organization,” said Peter Pham, head of the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center. “While there have been divisions within and defections from al-Shabab, my sense is that the hard-core element will actually emerge more nimble and lethal as a result of shedding those elements.”
Ongoing situation
The attackers, strapped with grenades and wielding machine guns and AK-47 rifles, had launched their attack on the Westgate Premier Shopping Mall on Saturday. An unknown number of people had remained inside the building, hiding from the gunmen. Sporadic gunfire erupted at the mall earlier Sunday as additional Kenyan security forces arrived to help defuse the crisis.
In a tweet Sunday night, Kenya’s National Disaster Operations Center said, “Major security assault by security forces ongoing to end two-day siege at Westgate mall.” In another tweet, the center said, “This will end tonight. Our forces will prevail.”
In two tweets, al-Shabab said: “Kenyan forces who’ve just attempted a roof landing must know that they are jeopardising the lives of all the hostages at #Westgate.” And: “The Kenyan government shall be held responsible for any loss of life as a result of such an imprudent move. The call is yours!”
Still, it was unclear whether the operation was an all-out effort to retake the mall or whether it amounted to another rescue operation to retrieve people trapped inside. Local news reports described several explosions coming from the mall, which has been cordoned off from the media and onlookers.
In an earlier statement, Kenya’s Red Cross said that 68 people had been killed and 49 people had been reported missing, but it was unclear whether this number included the hostages.
A senior Kenyan Interior Ministry official, Joseph Ole Lenku, said that Kenyan forces had rescued about 1,000 people from the mall and that 10 to 15 attackers remained inside the shopping center.
“The government will go out of its way to make sure we do not lose lives,” Lenku told reporters.
Appeal for patience
In a nationally televised news conference, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said that the siege had a good chance of ending and urged the nation to be patient.
“The criminals are now located in one place within the building. With the professionals on site, I assure Kenyans that we have as good a chance to successfully neutralize the terrorists as we can hope for,” he said.
Kenyatta added that one of his nephews and his nephew’s fiancée were among those killed.
Earlier Sunday, al-Shabab asserted responsibility for the assault in numerous tweets using its official Twitter handle, @HSM_Press. The militia said it was retaliating for Kenya sending troops to fight in neighboring Somalia, where it remains a key military actor.
“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,” the militia said in one tweet.
Early Sunday morning, al-Shabab’s Twitter account was suspended for the third time this year. Within hours, the militia had launched another Twitter handle_ HSM_PressOffice — and began to tweet again.
On Sunday evening, the militia said it had made contact again with the “Westgate warriors” and said that an attempt by Kenyan security forces to storm the building “failed miserably.”
“More than 30 hours have now passed and, like rabbits caught in the headlights, Kenyans are still shell-shocked,” the militia said in another tweet.
The dead and injured included young and old, Kenyans and foreigners, according to witnesses and a U.S. State Department official familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly. No Americans were thought to be among the dead, the official said.
Several children were reported killed or injured.
Worst attack in years
The assault was the deadliest terrorist attack in this East Africa nation since al-Qaeda operatives staged twin bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998, killing more than 200 people in Kenya alone.
Al-Shabab has staged numerous smaller attacks in the country since the government sent troops to Somalia in October 2011 to fight the militia. Most of those assaults targeted bus stations and churches, but never areas frequented by Westerners and wealthy Kenyans.
The tourism industry is Kenya’s second-largest source of foreign exchange, and dozens of Western aid agencies and businesses are based in the country.
The attack has appeared to usher in a new war on its soil for Kenya, long a bulwark of stability in the region and a key U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism.
The militia also orchestrated twin bombings in Kampala, Uganda, during the World Cup in July 2010, killing more than 70 people. That attack, the militia said, was in retaliation for the participation of Ugandan soldiers in an African force sent to protect Somalia’s government.
Kenyatta vowed to hunt down the perpetrators.
“We have overcome terrorist attacks before. We will defeat them again,” Kenyatta said.
Victims
Details about some of the victims of the attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya’s capital, according to officials from each country.
KENYA: President Uhuru Kenyatta’s nephew and nephew’s fiancée are among the dead.
INDIA: Two Indians, 8-year-old Parmashu Jain and 40-year-old Sridhar Natarajan, were killed, and four others were wounded.
BRITAIN: At least three U.K. nationals were killed. The Foreign Office warned the number of such fatalities is “likely to rise.”
FRANCE: Two French women were killed.
SOUTH AFRICA: One South African citizen was killed.
CANADA: Two Canadians, including a diplomat, died. Annemarie Desloges served in Canada’s High Commission to Kenya as a liaison officer with the Canada Border Services Agency.
GHANA: Ghanaian poet and ambassador Kofi Awoonor died after being injured.
THE NETHERLANDS: A 33-year-old Dutch woman died.
CHINA: A 38-year-old Chinese woman was killed; her son was injured.
UNITED STATES: The wife of a foreign service national working for the U.S. Agency for International Development was killed, and five American citizens were injured.
The Associated Press
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Pressure growing for action against Somali militants • WASHINGTON — The White House is under pressure to ramp up counterterrorism action against al-Shabab in Somalia after the al-Qaeda-linked group’s attack on an upscale Kenyan shopping mall that has killed and injured dozens, including Americans.
Republican lawmakers Sunday said the attack showed al-Qaeda is growing in size and strength, belying the Obama administration’s claims that it has grown weaker.
“They’re not on the decline,” said Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “They’re on the rise, as you can see from Nairobi.”
State Department spokesman Marie Harf said U.S. law enforcement, military and civilian personnel in Nairobi are providing advice and assistance as requested by the Kenyan authorities.
Secretary of State John Kerry called the assault “an enormous offense against everybody’s sense of right and wrong.”
Kerry, who is in New York for meetings at the United Nations, described the attackers as “ruthless and completely reckless terrorists.”
He spoke Sunday with Somalia’s foreign minister and U.N. ambassador. Somalia-based al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the attack. The Associated Press
