A Kenyan police officer guards the entrance of a building near the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, on Monday, September 23. Gunmen burst into the mall and opened fire in a deadly attack on September 21. Kenyan authorities sounded increasingly confident Monday that they had brought the three-day standoff to a close, reassuring a nervous public that there was little chance of escape for any surviving Al-Shabaab gunmen who had terrorized the mall, killing dozens of people. 
Heavy smoke rises from the Westgate Shopping Mall on September 23. 
Medics take cover behind a tree as gunfire and explosions are heard from the Westgate Mall on September 23. 
A Kenyan police security officer runs for cover as heavy smoke rises from the mall on September 23. 
A paramedic runs for cover outside the mall on September 23. 
People run for cover outside the mall after heavy shooting started on September 23. 
Kenyan security forces crouch behind a wall outside the mall on September 23. 
Soldiers take cover after gunfire near the mall on September 23. 
Kenyan paramilitary police officers patrol the area near the mall on Sunday, September 22. 
Soldiers from the Kenya Defense Forces arrive outside the Westgate Mall on September 22. 
A woman shields a baby as a soldier stands guard inside the Westgate Mall on Saturday, September 21. 
A rescue worker helps a child outside the mall on September 21. 
People who had been hiding inside the mall during the gunfire flee the scene. 
An armed official takes a shooting position inside the mall. 
An armed official crouches on September 21. 
Bodies lie on the ground inside the mall. 
Men help a wounded woman outside the mall on September 21. 
Officials carry an injured man in the mall. 
Soldiers move up stairs inside the Westgate Mall. 
A soldier directs people up a stairway inside the Westgate on September 21. 
An injured man is wheeled into the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi. 
People run from the Westgate Mall. 
A Kenyan woman is helped to safety after the masked gunmen stormed the upscale mall and sprayed gunfire on shoppers and staff. 
Crowds gather outside the upscale shopping mall. The interior ministry urges Kenyans to keep off the roads near the mall so police can ensure everyone inside has been evacuated to safety. 
A policeman carries a baby to safety. Authorities said multiple shooters were at the scene. 
Bodies lie outside the shopping mall. 
A security officer helps a wounded woman outside. 
Elaine Dang of San Diego is helped to safety after the attack. The military asked local media not to televise anything live because the gunmen are watching the screens in the mall. 
Paramedics treat an injured man outside the mall. 
Medical personnel carry a body away. 
A body lies outside the mall. Gunmen shot people outside the mall as they entered it 
A woman is pulled by a shopping cart to an ambulance. 
A wounded man is escorted outside the mall. 
A police officer carries a baby as people keep low and run to safety. Crowds dashed down the streets as soldiers in military fatigues, guns cocked, crawled under cars to get closer to the mall. 
People run away from the scene. 
Armed Kenyan forces take position to secure the area around the shopping mall as ambulances move in to carry the injured. 
Family members who were trapped inside manage to escape. One mall visitor said people ran outside but would return inside upon hearing gunfire coming from outdoors. 
A woman reacts after she is rescued from the mall. 
A couple flee the area. As night fell, authorities said they had cornered the gunmen in the mall. 
Armed police leave after entering the mall. At least one suspect has been killed, a government official said. Police have said another suspected gunman has been detained at a Nairobi hospital. 
Armed police take cover behind escalators as smoke fills the air. Witnesses say tear gas was thrown in the corridors. 
A woman who had been hiding during the attack runs for cover after armed police enter the mall. 
A body is seen on the floor inside the smoke-filled four-story mall. 
An injured person is helped on arrival at the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi after the attack at the upscale mall. 
An armed police officer takes cover during a volley of gunfire outside the mall. HIDE CAPTION
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
Kenya mall attack
<<
<</span>
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
>
>>
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: As night fell in Nairobi, there was no clear resolution of mall standoff
- NEW: Authorities yet to sound the all-clear about 6 hours after an assault by Kenyan forces
- Death toll revised down to 62; some bodies had been double-counted, Red Cross says
- Terror group Al-Shabaab claims three Americans among the attackers
Are you in Nairobi? Send us your images and experiences, but please stay safe.
Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) — Night fell Monday in Nairobi with no clear resolution of the standoff between Kenyan forces and terrorists at Westgate Shopping Mall.
Kenyan authorities sounded increasingly confident that they had brought the three-day standoff to a close with a final assault Monday, reassuring a nervous public that there was little chance of escape for any surviving Al-Shabaab gunmen who had terrorized the mall, killing at least 62 people.
“Taken control of all the floors. We’re not here to feed the attackers with pastries but to finish and punish them,” Kenyan police Inspector General David Kimaiyo said on Twitter.
But it wasn’t clear Monday evening whether any hostages remained inside the four-story mall, and authorities had yet to sound the all-clear about six hours after the assault by Kenyan forces.
See CNN anchor react to Kenya gunfire
Cell phone video shows Kenya mall attack
Kenya president: Cowards will be punished
Shooting witness: We crawled under cars
Gunfire echoed from the mall sporadically during the day, sending journalists and aid workers scrambling for cover. Thick heavy smoke — from a fire set by terrorists, according to Kenyan authorities — billowed into the air much of the afternoon.
Kenya assault raises new fears about Somali recruitment
Three terrorists have been confirmed killed since Saturday, the Interior Ministry said Monday. Eleven Kenyan soldiers have been wounded, according to the Kenya Defence Forces. More than 200 civilians have been rescued, the military said.
Away from the mall, Kenyan authorities said they had arrested more than 10 people for questioning in connection with the attack, including at least four taken into custody at an airport.
Authorities urged law enforcement officers to closely scrutinize travelers’ documents, and the country’s Immigration Department said in a tweet that it had increased security at entry and exit points.
Surviving the Nairobi mall massacre: ‘Just lucky’
Americans involved?
Before its Twitter account was suspended, Al-Shabaab issued a list of the names of nine people it said were among the attackers. It said three were from the United States, two from Somalia and one each from Canada, Finland, Kenya and the United Kingdom.
U.S. officials don’t have any confirmation of Americans having been involved in the attack, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters, and a senior U.S. official told CNN that Al-Shabaab’s claim that Americans were among its ranks of attackers at Westgate seemed less solid.
Intelligence analysts are poring over electronic intercepts in an effort to verify or knock down the terror group’s claims, two law enforcement sources told CNN.
The FBI also was looking into the claims but has not yet confirmed them, law enforcement officials told CNN.
Federal officials and Somali-American leaders in Minneapolis have reported that Al-Shabaab has recruited young men there to go to Africa to fight.
The siege
The terrorist attack began at midday Saturday, Nairobi time, with an estimated 10 to 15 gunmen taking over the mall in what hospital volunteer Abiti Shah said witnesses told her was “like a Hollywood action scene.”
“They just started firing in the air,” Shah said, retelling the witness accounts.
A youth cooking competition was taking place at the mall at the time, and terrified shoppers fled for their lives as gunfire echoed through the building.
Witnesses said the gunmen went from store to store, shooting people, and then took hostages.
Survivor Bendita Malakia, a North Carolina woman who moved to Nairobi in July, told CNN affiliate WAVY that she took refuge behind the closed metal gates of a store with dozens of others.
The Kenyan spirit cannot be broken’ says eyewitness resident
“While we were back there, you could hear them methodically going from store to store, talking to people and asking questions,” she said. “They were shooting, screaming. Then it would stop for a while and they would go to another store.”
Al-Shabaab has claimed that the attackers targeted non-Muslims and vowed they would not negotiate for the hostages’ lives. CNN security analyst Peter Bergen said the terrorists apparently took hostages only to prolong the siege and win more media attention.
The dead
Most of the dead were said to be Kenyans.
Four British citizens, two French nationals and two Canadians, including a diplomat, also died, their governments said.
Those killed include:
• A 33-year-old Dutch woman, said Friso Vijnen, according to a Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry official.
• A major African poet, author and Ghanian statesman, Kofi Awoonor, Ghana’s president said.
• The nephew of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the man’s fiancee.
• A Peruvian doctor, Juan Jesus Ortiz, who had previously worked for the United Nations Fund for Children and lived in Kenya doing consulting work, the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said.
The wounded
Al Qaeda-linked group claims attacks
Witness: We saw lots of blood
A deeper look at Al-Shabaab
How safe are America’s malls?
Kenyatta said more than 175 people had been wounded. Five were Americans, the State Department said Sunday.
Elaine Dang, 26, a University of California, Berkeley, graduate from San Diego, underwent surgery to her chest, arms and legs.
“I’m OK, I’m very grateful to be alive,” she told CNN affiliate KFMB-TV
She said two friends died in the attack.
Al-Shabaab breaks new ground with complex Nairobi attack
The terrorists
The Somalia-based Al-Shabaab terror group had said on Twitter that it had sent the gunmen to the mall in retaliation for Kenya’s involvement in an African Union military effort against the group, which is al Qaeda’s proxy in Somalia.
Last year, the Kenyan military was part of a peacekeeping force that defeated Al-Shabaab forces to liberate the key Somali port of Kismayo.
Since Kenya launched attacks against Al-Shabaab in Somalia in 2011, the group has hurled grenades at Kenyan churches, bus stops and other public places.
The mall attack is the deadliest terror attack in Kenya since al Qaeda blew up the U.S. Embassy there in 1998, killing 213 people.
Al-Shabaab grew amid Somalia’s lawlessness
Reports of a white woman among the terrorists inside the mall were the subject of contradictory accounts Monday.
Senior Kenyan intelligence officials told CNN that surveillance video from inside the mall appears to show such a woman taking part in the attack. Analysts believe she is British, the sources said.
But Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku told reporters that all of the attackers were men. Some of them apparently had dressed as women, he said.
The reports came after earlier speculation that the Al-Shabaab-affiliated “White Widow,” Samantha Lewthwaite, may have been involved in the Westgate attack.
Lewthwaite’s husband, Germaine Lindsey, was one of the suicide bombers killed in the 2005 attack on London’s transportation system. His Buckinghamshire-born widow is wanted by Kenyan authorities for her alleged role as an Al-Shabaab and al Qaeda-linked financier.
State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu earlier said that “nothing is being ruled out” when it comes to Lewthwaite’s possible involvement.
Such involvement would be “very unusual,” said Bergen, the security analyst.
“Typically these groups are misogynist,” he said. “Their view is the woman should be in a home and shrouded in a body veil.”
The investigation
Lenku said that Monday’s effort to roust the terrorists was a Kenyan operation, but government sources told CNN that Israeli special forces also were at the scene.
Kenyatta, the Kenyan president, vowed Sunday to punish those responsible for the attacks.
“They shall not get away with their despicable, beastly acts. Like the cowardly perpetrators now cornered in the building, we will punish the masterminds swiftly and indeed very painfully,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promised an American investigation.
Kenya bloodshed: World leaders react
“Obviously, it’s an enormous offense against everybody’s sense of right and wrong,” Kerry said. “It represents the seriousness and the breadth of the challenge we face with ruthless and completely reckless terrorists, and we’re going to pursue them.”
Michael Pearson reported and wrote from Atlanta; Zain Verjee and Nima Elbagir reported from Nairobi. CNN’s Arwa Damon, Lillian Lesposo, Holly Yan, Greg Botelho, Brian Walker, Jackie Castillo and David Simpson also contributed to this report.
Originally posted here:
Kenya police vow to ‘finish and punish’ terrorists
The post Kenya police vow to ‘finish and punish’ terrorists appeared first on Arne Ruhnau News.
via Arne Ruhnau News http://arneruhnau.com/kenya-police-vow-to-finish-and-punish-terrorists/
No comments:
Post a Comment