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| Kenyan Defense Forces leave the near vicinity of the Westgate Mall in Nairobi Kenya Monday Sept. 23 2013. Multiple large blasts have rocked the mall where a hostage siege is in its third day. Associated Press reporters on the scene heard multiple blasts and a barrage of gunfire. Security forces have been attempting to rescue an unknown number of hostages inside the mall held by al-Qaida-linked terrorists. |
NAIROBI, Kenya
(AP) -- Kenyan security forces were in the final stages of flushing
out Islamic extremist terrorists from a besieged shopping mall, the vice
president said late Monday, two days after the upscale mall was seized
by members of a Somali group linked to al-Qaida.
It is unlikely that any more hostages remained inside Westgate Mall, said another official.
But
similar claims of a quick resolution were made by Kenyan officials on
Sunday and the siege has continued for another day. It is not possible
to independently verify their assertions.
Three
attackers were killed in the fighting Monday, officials said, and more
than 10 suspects arrested. Eleven Kenyan soldiers were wounded in the
running gun battles. By evening, Kenyan security officials claimed the
upper hand.
"Taken control of all the floors.
We're not here to feed the attackers with pastries but to finish and
punish them," Police Inspector General David Kimaiyo said on Twitter.
Kenya's
interior minister said the evacuation of hostages "has gone very, very
well" and that Kenyan officials are "very certain" that there are few if
any hostages left in the building.
Vice
President William Ruto landed in Kenya late Monday after International
Criminal Court officials in The Hague gave him permission to return to
Kenya. Ruto is on trial for crimes against humanity charges over
allegations he helped orchestrate Kenya's 2007-08 post-election
violence.
Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku
revised the death toll to 62. Kenyan officials earlier said 59 people
have died since the siege on Westgate Mall began on Saturday, while the
Red Cross had put the toll at 68, then in a tweet lowered it to 62,
saying some bodies had been counted twice.
Earlier
witness reports had indicated that a woman was among the estimated 10
to 15 attackers. Lenku said that instead some male attackers had dressed
up like women.
Dark plumes of smoke rose from
the mall for more than an hour Monday afternoon after four large
explosions rocked the upscale Westlands neighborhood. A person with
knowledge of the rescue operation told The Associated Press that the
smoke was rising up and out of a large skylight inside the mall's main
department and grocery store, Nakumatt, where goods like mattresses may
have been lit on fire.
The four explosions
were followed by volleys of gunfire, then a thick, dark column of smoke
that burned for roughly 90 minutes. Military and police helicopters and
one plane circled over the Nairobi mall, giving the upscale neighborhood
the feel of a war zone.
Kenyan forces were in
charge of all floors inside the mall, though terrorists could still be
hiding inside, said Kenya Chief of Defense forces Gen. Julius Karangi.
Fighters from an array of nations participated in the attack claimed by al-Shabab, said Karangi.
"We have an idea who these people are and they are clearly a multinational collection from all over the world," he said.
In
the United States, the FBI is looking into whether Americans were
involved in the Kenya mall attack, said FBI spokesman Paul Bresson.
On
Sunday Kenyan officials announced that "most" hostages had been
rescued. But no numbers were given. Kenya's Red Cross said in a
statement, citing police, that 49 people had been reported missing.
Kenyan officials have never said how many hostages they thought the
attackers had, but have said preserving the hostages' lives is a top
priority.
Kenyans and foreigners were among
those confirmed dead, including British, French, Canadians, Indians, a
Ghanaian, a South African and a Chinese woman. The UK Foreign Office
said Monday it has confirmed the deaths of four British nationals.
From
neighboring Somalia, spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage for al-Shabab -
the militant group that claimed responsibility for the attack - said in
an audio file posted on a website that the hostage takers had been
ordered to "take punitive action against the hostages" if force was used
to try to rescue them.
At the Oshwal Centre
next to the mall, the Red Cross was using a squat concrete structure
that houses a Hindu temple as a triage center. Medical workers attended
to at least two wounded Kenyan soldiers there on Monday.
Al-Shabab
said on a Twitter feed, an account that unlike some others appears to
be genuine, that the attackers had lots of ammunition. The feed said
that Kenya's government would be responsible for any loss of hostages'
lives.
As the crisis passed the 48-hour mark, a
video emerged that was taken by someone inside the mall's main
department store when the assault began. The video showed frightened and
unsure shoppers crouching as long and loud volleys of gunfire could be
heard.
The al-Shabab extremists stormed the mall on Saturday from two sides, throwing grenades and firing on civilians.
Al-Shabab said the attack, targeting non-Muslims, was in retribution for Kenyan forces' 2011 push into neighboring Somalia.
Al-Shabab
is an extremist Islamic terrorist force that grew out of the anarchy
that crippled Somalia after warlords ousted a longtime dictator in 1991.
Its name means "The Youth" in Arabic, and it was a splinter youth wing
of a weak Islamic Courts Union government created in 2006 to establish a
fundamentalist Islamic state in the East African nation.
Al-Shabab
is estimated to have several thousand fighters, including a few hundred
foreign fighters. Some of the insurgents' foreign fighters are from the
Middle East with experience in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
Others are young, raw recruits from Somali communities in the United
States and Europe.
