Death toll hits 59 as FBI and Israeli forces join battle to end siege at shopping mall

Kenyan troops backed by Israeli and FBI agents on Sunday battled to end a siege on Westgate Mall and free hostages held by Somali militants in an attack in which 59 people were killed and more than 175 injured.

On Sunday, the government estimated that between 10 and 15 attackers were still holed up in the mall with about 36 hostages.

The Kenya Red Cross estimated the injured at 200 and 49 still missing.

Sporadic gunfire rang out as security officials said they were trying to kill or capture the remaining attackers and end the 28-hour-long bloodbath at the Westgate mall.

“The Israelis have just entered and they are rescuing the hostages and the injured,” a Kenyan security source said. The Israeli foreign ministry refused to confirm or deny its forces were involved.

At 6.15pm, a Nation reporter at the scene said the helicopters surveying the scene were flying low and there was sustained gunfire in the building with the attackers reportedly holed up in a room with bulletproof glass.

The assault is understood to involve officers and soldiers from three units of the Kenya Defence Forces, the Regular and Administration police and the Anti-Terror Police Unit.

Nation reporters could identify officers and soldiers from the Gilgil-based 20 Para Battalion who are understood to be working with the Special Forces and their colleagues from the Rangers Strike Force.

Terrified witnesses recounted Saturday scenes of horror as the masked gunmen tossed grenades and sprayed automatic gunfire in the packed centre, sending panicked shoppers fleeing for their lives.

Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militia said the carnage at the part Israeli-owned complex was in retaliation for Kenya’s military intervention in Somalia, where African Union troops are battling the Islamists.

“We have warned Kenya of that attack but it ignored (us), still forcefully holding our lands... while killing our innocent civilians,” Al-Shabaab spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said in a statement.

“If you want Kenya in peace, it will not happen as long as your boys are in our lands.”

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”.

INDISCRIMINATE ATTACKS

Muslims were among those mowed down by the attackers.

Interior minister Joseph ole Lenku said: “We believe there are some innocent people in the building, that is why the operation is delicate.”

Helicopters continued circling overhead and several truckloads of soldiers arrived at the scene.

Later in the day, two large mobile cranes were taken there, with fire engines from the Nairobi City Fire Brigade also coming and going.

President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a televised address to the nation on Sunday that he had lost his nephew and his fiancee in the attack. “These are lovely young people that I knew and loved,” he said.

And speaking at State House on Sunday while accompanied by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and former Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi, the President said there were 10 to 15 armed terrorists inside the building as well as many unarmed, badly shaken and innocent civilians.

“Owing to the professional response of the various security agencies at the scene and the selflessness of countless Kenyans, more than 1,000 people were rescued from the Mall and attended to,” he said.

President Kenyatta said terror attack claimed 59 lives and injured more than 175 people.

The Westgate mall is popular with well-off Kenyans and expatriates, and was packed with around 1,000 shoppers when the masked gunmen marched in at midday on Saturday.

Among the dead were one South African, three Britons, two French citizens, two Canadians including a diplomat, a Chinese woman, two Indians and a South Korean, according to their governments. Also killed was Ghanaian poet and former UN envoy Kofi Awoonor, 78, while his son was injured.

US leader Barack Obama yesterday called President Kenyatta to express condolences to the government and Kenyans for the terrorist attack. 

A statement from the US embassy said President Obama reiterated his support for Kenya’s efforts to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice. 

Security agencies have long feared that the shopping centre could be targeted by Al-Qaeda-linked groups.

The attack, the worst in Nairobi since an Al-Qaeda bombing at the US embassy killed more than 200 people in 1998, was condemned by world powers and the UN.

After a day and night of sometimes ferocious gun battles, security sources said police and soldiers had finally “pinned down” the gunmen.

BATTLING ATTACKERS

“We are still battling with the attackers and our forces have managed to maroon the attackers on one of the floors,” said Kenyan military spokesperson, Colonel Cyrus Oguna. “We hope to bring this to an end today (Sunday).”

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. Only God can heal us and our country.”

Cafe waiter Titus Alede, who risked his life and leapt from the first floor of the mall, said it was a “miracle from God” that he managed to escape the approaching gunmen.

“I was serving a client and these men came. They were not after money as they were shooting people without asking for anything. I remember them saying ‘you killed our people in Somalia, it is our time to pay you back’,” he said.

One teenage survivor told how he played dead to avoid being killed. “I heard screams and gunshots all over the place. I got scared. I tried to run down the stairs and saw someone running towards the top, I ran back and hid behind one of the cars,” 18-year-old Umar Ahmed told AFP.

In the hours after the attack began, shocked people of all ages and races could be seen running from the mall, some clutching babies, while others crawled along walls to avoid stray bullets.

Reporting by Patrick Mayoyo, Zaddock Angira, John Ngirachu, AFP and Xinhua