Terrorists in deadly attack on luxury hotel

Witnesses describe carnage at complex

WITNESSES HAVE reported seeing several bodies after extremists launched an attack on a luxury hotel in Kenya’s capital city.

Al-Shabab – the Somalia-based Islamic extremist group that carried out the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi that left 67 people dead – has claimed responsibility.

“It is terrible. What I have seen is terrible,” said a man who ran from the scene.

Late on Tuesday night, about eight hours after the siege began, Interior Minister Fred Matian’i said that all of the buildings affected by the attack had been secured and that security forces were “mopping up”.

“I would like to reiterate that the situation is under control and the country is safe,” he said.

He did not say give a toll of the dead and wounded. And it was not clear how many attackers took part in the siege.

A Kenyan police officer said bodies were seen in restaurants downstairs and in offices upstairs, but “there was no time to count the dead”.

Another witness said he saw five bodies at the entrance.

He said that other people were shouting for help and “when we rushed back to try to rescue them, gunshots started coming from upstairs, and we had to duck because they were targeting us and we could see two guys

shooting”. Kenyan hospitals appealed for blood donations even as the number of wounded remained unclear.

The violence appeared to fit the pattern of attacks al-Shabab often carries out in Somalia’s capital, with an explosion followed by a group of gunmen storming the place.

Like the Westgate Mall attack, this one appeared aimed at wealthy Kenyans and foreigners living in the country.

The hotel complex is in an affluent section of Nairobi that has large numbers of expatriates from the US, Europe and India.

The attack came a day after a magistrate ruled that three men must stand trial on charges they were involved in the Westgate Mall siege.

A fourth suspect was freed for lack of evidence.

People rushed and some were carried, from the scene.

Some ducked behind cars screaming, while others took cover behind fountains and other features at the lush complex.

Ambulances, security forces and firefighters converged on the scene along with a bomb disposal unit, and vehicles were cordoned off for fear they contained explosives.

Police said they blew up a car that had explosives inside.

An unexploded grenade was also seen in a hallway at the complex.

Al-Shabab has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia since 2011.

The al-Qaida-linked group has killed hundreds of people in Kenya, which has been targeted more than any other of the six countries providing troops to an African Union force in Somalia.

We saw bodies... but there was no time to count the dead.

A Kenyan police officer who was at the scene of the attack.