Kenya forces storm besieged Nairobi mall

After assault on militants, deaths climb to 68, 175 hurt

Groups of onlookers gather on a road looking down over the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013. Multiple barrages of gunfire erupted Sunday morning from the upscale Kenyan mall where there is a hostage standoff with Islamic extremists nearly 24 hours after they attacked using grenades and assault rifles. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Groups of onlookers gather on a road looking down over the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013. Multiple barrages of gunfire erupted Sunday morning from the upscale Kenyan mall where there is a hostage standoff with Islamic extremists nearly 24 hours after they attacked using grenades and assault rifles. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenyan’s military said late Sunday it had rescued most of the remaining hostages held by al-Qaida-linked militants in an upscale Nairobi mall after launching a major operation to end a two-day standoff that had already killed 68 people.

The military assault, which began shortly before sundown, came as two helicopters circled the mall, with one skimming very close to the roof. A loud explosion rang out, far larger than any previous grenade blast or gunfire volley.

“This will end tonight. Our forces will prevail.Kenyans are standing firm against aggression, and we will win,” Kenya’s National Disaster Operation Centre said on Twitter.

Kenya Defence Forces later said they had rescued most hostages and had taken control of most of the mall.

Many of the rescued hostages - mostly adults - were suffering from dehydration, said Col. Cyrus Oguna, a military spokesman. Oguna refused to release the number of hostages rescued or those still being held. He said some of the attackers had “most probably” been killed in the operation, which began in the morning and culminated in the evening.

The assault came about30 hours after 10 to 15 al-Shabab extremists stormed the mall Saturday from two sides, throwing grenades and firing on civilians.

Loud exchanges of gunfire emanated from inside the four-story upscale mall throughout Sunday. Kenyan troops were seen carrying in at least two rocket-propelled grenades. Al-Shabab militants reacted angrily to the helicopters on Twitter and warned that the Kenyan military action was endangering hostages.

Kenyan officials said they would do their utmost to save hostages’ lives, but no officials could say precisely how many hostages were inside. Kenya’s Red Cross said in a statement citing police that 49 people had been reported missing.Officials did not make an explicit link, but that number could give an indication of the number of people held captive.

Kenya’s Red Cross said the death toll on Sunday rose to 68 after nine bodies were recovered in a joint rescue mission.

A U.S. State Department spokesman condemned the “despicable massacre of innocent men, women and children.” U.S. law enforcement, military and civilian personnel in Nairobi were providing advance and assistance as requested by Kenya, spokesman Marie Harf said.

Al-Shabab, Somalia’s al-Qaida-linked rebel group, claimed responsibility for the attack, which specifically targeted non-Muslims. The attackers included some women. The Islamic extremist rebels said the attack was retribution for Kenyan forces’ 2011 push into neighboring Somalia.

The assault was the deadliest terrorist attack in Kenya since al-Qaida operatives staged twin bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998, killing more than 200 people in Kenya alone. Al-Shabab has staged numerous smaller attacks in the country since the government sent troops to Somalia. Most of those assaults targeted bus stations and churches, but never areas frequented by Westerners and wealthy Kenyans. The tourism industry is Kenya’s second-largest source of foreign exchange, and dozens of Western aid agencies and businesses are based in the country.

Al-Shabab said on its new Twitter feed - after its previous one was shut down Saturday - that Kenyan officials were asking the hostage-takers to negotiate and offering incentives.

“We’ll not negotiate with the Kenyan govt as long as its forces are invading our country, so reap the bitter fruits of your harvest,” al-Shabab said in a tweet.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry condemned what he called “an enormous offense against everybody’s sense of right and wrong,” and called the attackers “ruthless and completely reckless terrorists.”

Kerry, who was in New York for meetings at the United Nations, spoke Sunday with Somalia’s foreign minister and U.N. ambassador.

President Barack Obama called Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Sunday to express his condolences and reiterated U.S. support to bring the attackers to justice, according to a statement from the White House.

On Sunday, Kenyatta reiterated his government’s determination to continue fighting al-Shabab.

“We went as a nation into Somalia to help stabilize the country and most importantly to fight terror that had been unleashed on Kenya and the world,” Kenyatta said. “We shall not relent on the war on terror.”

He said although this violent attack had succeeded, the Kenyan security forces had “neutralized” many others. Earlier in the day, Kenyatta said his nephew and his nephew’s fiancee were killed in the attack.

“These are young, lovely people I personally knew and loved,” Kenyatta said. “Many of us have lost loved ones. Let us mourn them all as one nation and keep them always in remembrance and prayer.”

More than 175 people were injured in the attack, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Lenku said, including many children. Kenyan forces were by Sunday in control of the mall’s security cameras, he said. Four Americans were believed to have been injured in the attack, U.S. officials said, and none were reported killed.

Kenyans and foreigners were among those confirmed dead, including British, French, Canadians, Indians, a Ghanaian, a South African and a Chinese woman.

The identities of several victims began to come out Sunday; the local news media reported that a popular radio host was among those killed.

The radio host, Ruhila Adatia-Sood, was in the parking lot of the Westgate Mall, where she was hosting a cooking competition, according to reports. She had posted several photos on her Instagram account before the attack.

Kofi Awoonor, a Ghanaian poet, professor and former ambassador to Brazil, Cuba and the U.N., died after being injured in the attack, Ghana’s presidential office confirmed. Ghana’s ministry of information said Awoonor’s son was injured and is responding to treatment.

Kenya’s presidential office said that one of the attackers was arrested on Saturday and died after suffering from bullet wounds.

Britain’s Foreign Office said that Foreign Secretary William Hague has held a meeting of Britain’s crisis committee and sent a rapid deployment team from London to Nairobi to provide extra consular support.

The U.N. Security Council condemned the attacks and “expressed their solidarity with the people and Government of Kenya” in a statement.

Ilana Stein, a spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the attack initially took place near the ArtCaffe, an Israeli-owned coffee shop and bakery popular with foreigners that is one of 80 businesses in the mall. Stein said that one Israeli had been injured, that three others had escaped unharmed and that Israelis had not been specifically targeted. “This time, the story is not about Israel,” Stein said.

On Sunday, Israeli officials denied reports that the country’s security services had gotten involved in the standoff in Nairobi. But a report on the news site Ynet cited a senior Israeli security source as saying that Israeli “consultants” had been helping the Kenyans “formulate a negotiation strategy to resolve the crisis.”

There was some good news on Sunday, as Kenyan media reported that several people in hiding in the mall escaped to safety in the morning, suggesting that not everyone who was inside overnight was being held by al-Shabab.

Police lobbed multiple rounds of tear gas throughout the day to disperse hundreds of curious Kenyans who gathered near the mall.

In the U.S., Rep. Peter King. R-N.Y., said he’s worried al-Shabab will attack in the U.S.

The group is one of the only al-Qaida affiliates that has actively recruited in the U.S., King said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. The group has trained at least 40 or 50 Somali-Americans, he said.

There are probably 15 to 20 Somali-Americans still active in al-Shabab, whose full name means Mujahedeen Youth Movement in Arabic, King said.

King said he didn’t know if any Somali-Americans were active in the shooting rampage at the mall.

Current and former U.S. officials said Saturday that the attack could be the start of a comeback.

“I think this is just the beginning,” said Rudy Atallah, the former director of African counterterrorism for the Pentagon. “An attack like this gives them the capability to recruit, it shows off their abilities, and it demonstrates to al-Qaida central that they are not dead.” Information for this article was contributed by Jacob Kushner, Jason Straziuso, Tom Odula, Josef Federman, Louise Watt and Cassandra Vinograd of The Associated Press; by Michael Bender, Heidi Przybyla, Eric Ombok, Sarah McGregor, Margret Talev, Marco Lui, Calev Ben-David, Alisa Odenheimer, Robert Hutton, Li Liu, Andrea Rothman and Chris Strohm of Bloomberg News; by Sudarsan Raghavan, Matea Gold and Greg Miller of The Washington Post; and by Nicholas Kulish, Jeffery Gettleman, Reuben Kyama, Tyler Hicks, Jodi Rudoren, Mark Mazzetti and Mohammed Ibrahim of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/23/2013

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