Explosions rock mall as battle continues
NAIROBI: Kenyan security forces were locked in a fierce battle with Somali Islamist gunmen inside a Nairobi shopping mall yesterday as explosions and heavy gunfire echoed out of the complex.
A thick cloud of black smoke billowed out from the Westgate mall as Kenyan officials said the 50-hour-long siege — which has seen the gunmen massacre at least 69 people and take dozens more hostage — was close to being resolved.
‘‘We think the operation will come to an end soon,’’ Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said outside the vast part Israeli-owned complex, which was popular with wealthy Kenyans and expatriates.
‘‘We are in control of all the floors, the terrorists are running and hiding in some stores, there is no room for escape,’’ he said, adding that some hostages had been freed, but without giving specific
numbers. Two gunmen were also killed.
The Kenyan Red Cross said at least 63 people were recorded missing, thought to include hostages as well as those possibly killed or still hiding. Around 200 people were wounded, officials said.
Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab insurgents have claimed the attack, which began at midday on Saturday when gunmen marched into the complex, firing grenades and automatic weapons and sending panicked shoppers fleeing.
Kenyan army chief Julius Karangi said the gunmen had different nationalities.
‘‘They are from different countries. We have sufficient intelligence this is global terrorism,’’ he said.
Al-Shabaab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage warned that the hostages were being used as human shields.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta
vowed the attackers will ‘‘not get away with their despicable and beastly acts’’.
‘‘We will punish the masterminds swiftly,’’ he declared in a televised speech on Sunday, revealing that a family member — a nephew and his fiancee — were among the dead.
The al-Shabaab rebels said the attack 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,’’ Mr Rage said.
Witnesses said the gunmen tried to weed out non-Muslims for execution by interrogating people on their religion or asking them to recite the Shahada, or Muslim profession of faith.
The dead include four Britons, two French women, two Canadians, a Chinese
woman, two Indians, 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.
Security camera footage seen by Kenya’s The Standard newspaper showed gunmen raking toilet cubicles with a barrage of gunfire, apparently after learning that several people were hiding inside.
Waiter Titus Alede, who leapt from the first floor of the mall to avoid being killed, said it was a ‘‘miracle’’ that he managed to escape the gunmen.
‘‘I remember them saying ‘you killed our people in Somalia, it is our time to pay you back’,’’ he said.