Yearning To Be Reunited

"Barry? Barry, is this you?"
"Yes ... Who's this?"
"Yes, Barry ... this is your Aunt Jane. In Nairobi. Can you hear me?"
"I'm sorry -- who did you say you were?"
"Aunt Jane. Listen, Barry, your father is dead. He is killed in a car accident. Hello? Can you hear me? I say,  your father is dead. Barry, please call your uncle in Boston and tell him. I can't talk now, okay, Barry. I will try to call you again ..."
At the time of his death, my father remained a myth to me, both more and less than a man. He had left Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two  years old, so that as a child I knew him only through the stories that my mother and grandparents told. They all had their favorites, each one seamless, burnished smooth from repeated use. I can still picture Gramps leaning back in his old stuffed chair after dinner, sipping whiskey and cleaning his teeth with the cellophane from his cigarette pack, recounting the time that my father almost threw a man off the Pali Lookout because of a pipe ...
U.S. President Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father

"It has been my long cherished ambition to further my studies in America."
"The people around here [University of Hawaii] have made me feel at home. [They] called upon me to give several speeches on Africa and on Kenya."
"I rarely get any news here about Africa."
Barack Hussein Obama Sr. letters, 1958 - 1964, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem

Barack Obama is seen with his father Barack Obama Sr in an undated family snapshot from the late 60s or early 70s. Obama's father, originally from Kenya, was killed in an car accident in Kenya in 1982 after returning to Africa.   Picture: REUTERS

The letters carry the voice and the thoughts and the experiences of a then-young man from Kenya whose improbable background as a village boy tending goats, walking barefoot to school, but imbued with ambition, intelligence, confidence and audaciousness led him to write to a number of American universities to describe himself as a penniless clerk of 22, able to type 75 words a minute and translate English into Swahili, whose ambition it was to further his education in the United States.

He was looking for some good Samaritan or institute to see their way clear to funding that ambition. And the University of Hawaii took up that challenge, to enable the  young man to travel from his village in Kenya to Hawaii. "I still didn't know the man my father had been", wrote President Obama in his book ... "What had shaped his ambitions?" Having stated which it would seem only logical that if the opportunity presented itself, beyond his long-ago visit to his roots in Kenya, he would grasp it.

Barack Obama's father's letters were discovered in the archives of the Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. What a trove that represented. The scholarship funding he was offered enabled him to travel to the United States to fulfill part of his dream of accomplishing something for himself. The letter-discovery was made in 2013. So, of course the university (Hawaii and Harvard) transcripts, the letters written in Obama Sr.'s hand and other related documents were immediately offered for scrutiny to his son.

The void that President Obama has spoken of, written of, at the absence of his father in his life could be partially filled, finally. He is no longer that teenager struggling to understand in the absence of a father "what it meant to be a man". In Dreams from My Father, Mr. Obama's quest to learn as much as he could about his father by visiting his family in Kenya, he discovered vital background and family contacts, but "I still didn't know the man my father had been".

The Schomburg Center is still awaiting a response from the invitation it issued to the President three years earlier. It was at the University of Hawaii while Mr. Obama was busy with his undergraduate studies in 1960 that he met Ann Dunham, from one of his classes. As a Muslim the senior Obama, though he had a wife and two children in Kenya, was able under Islam, to marry another wife, and so he did when it was discovered that Ann Dunham was pregnant. He remained with his American wife until their child was two, then returned to Kenya.

He aspired to be involved in the Kenyan government in its new independence. While at University of Hawaii he adapted readily to campus life. He had revealed that he hadn't achieved a high school diploma in Kenya, but it appears his intelligence and readiness to focus on academics revealed the value of his intelligence, excelling in classes and coming away with an economics undergraduate degree with honors. He went on to Harvard for a graduate degree and by then was no longer anchored to his American family.

Master's degree in economics in hand, he returned to Kenya. President Obama's uncle, the senior Obama's brother, speaks of the resemblance he sees so acutely obvious between his nephew and his brother; the tenor of his voice, the way he moves and strides along, so like his father. Strangely, for a man who so yearns to have known his father, to have been with him, to have had his guidance, President Obama has shown little inclination to make the effort any longer.

If and when he ever does decide to look a little closer at the mementos of the man who was his father he can access them at Box 214 of the Phelps Stokes Fund collection at the Schomburg storage facility in New York. They're there, waiting for him.

Poorly Laid (Criminally) Inept Plans

"In preparation for this, teams of security marshals comprising of staff and students together with the emergency response team were trained on evacuation, assembly points and exit points. Unfortunately, some students and staff panicked and got injured."
"We have started an intensive assessment of key lessons learned during this simulation. We will reveal these to the necessary authorities."
Statement, Strathmore University, Kenya

@OduwoNoahAkala -- Terrified students could be seen hiding on window ledges from supposed attackers in photos posted on social media

"I ran into a classroom, but the gunshots still intensified. I jumped through the window and saw some of my colleagues also trying to jump in the same manner."
Strathmore University student

Kenyan universities began a process of security drills in the wake of the Garissa school attack when Islamist jihadists had successfully mounted a deadly assault in April against the school that resulted in the death of 148 people. Seems like an idea whose time had come; to ensure that all schools had in place routines that would lead to the safety of the students whose security and well-being they are entrusted with.

But if, during the process of mounting such a drill, no notice that it is being carried out is received, reasonably enough people will take it for a real terrorist attack.

And this is precisely what happened when the Nairobi-based university became involved in a drill that no one had advance notice would proceed. Instead, because no intercom message went out to warn: "This is a drill", students and staff went immediately into survival mode, panic ensuing as everyone attempted to escape the environs where shots were being heard.

Those who succeeded in exiting the school waded through the Mbagathi River.

They had to climb out of windows, perching themselves over promontories of the university walls, hoping to find some way out of the dilemma that was making them sitting ducks. One woman desperate to escape what she must have felt was an imminent death at the hands of jihadis, was an employee of the university, 33-year-old Esther Kindambi whose leap from the third floor of the building led to her death.

EPA -- Ambulances which were only meant to be part of the drill had to be used to take the injured to hospital

Before the panic subsided, about thirty people were injured. The school's communication director confirmed the death and the university stated that an "approved safety and security simulation drill" had taken place for the purpose of testing the school readiness in its emergency team should an attack occur. Rubber bullets were being used in the drill, but the people on campus heard shots that sounded very, very real and absolutely threatening.

It had been approved, however, and that's what matters. Safety and security are, after all, acutely needful. Will a lesson be learned as a result of this unfortunate misunderstanding? What about the 'lesson learned' when, during a similar exercise at Kenyatta University six students had been injured, requiring hospital care?

Kenya has been targeted by attacks from al-Shabab on frequent occasions. Leaving Kenyan security forces open to criticism for failing to respond in a timely manner to warnings and attack reports. "The *Strathmore Drill was like those medieval medicines that were more dangerous than the diseases they were trying to cure. Tragic." drolly observed Ugandan journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo.

Government incompetence is always unfortunate, but when it becomes a matter of safety and security going so badly awry, it is not more incompetent, it veers into criminality.

Kenya On Alert

"We targeted the two areas because according to information we have, those [al Shabab] fellows are coming from there to attack Kenya."
Kenyan Defence Forces spokesman

"We were expecting tourists from U.K., Germany, France, Australia and Asia continent, but they canceled their bookings when they learned of the terror attack."
Peter Kipeno, Maasai Mara game park, Kenya

"Something has to change. Kenya must change from its Hakuna Matata posture [hakuna matata, a common Swahili expression meaning: 'no problem'] and realize that a war is afoot against a merciless enemy."
Sunday Nation editorial, Kenya

The first thing that should change is that the Kenyan security forces must be imbued with a sense of urgency, of a responsibility to surface where the danger is highest, and for them and the government itself to take seriously the information it receives from other countries warning of impending danger. Those outside warnings would not seem to be necessary the least bit, in light of previous al-Shabab attacks within Kenya. Yet it appears to have taken security forces eight hours to arrive at Garissa University's violent outrage mounted by al-Shabab.

As though to compensate, the Kenyan air force has bombed two al-Shabab camps in Somalia with jets pounding the camps in Gondodoe and Ismail in the region bordering Kenya. Without knowing how effective their campaign to bomb the camps were because of a low cloud cover that also didn't permit them to discover their bombs may have gone where they weren't intended to, killing civilians instead of members of al-Shabab.

Who would, in any event, have taken measures to evacuate the camps knowing full well that there would be a reaction to their storming of the Garissa University College campus, killing 248 mostly Christian students.

Intelligence reports point to wanted terrorist Mohamed Mohamud, accused of masterminding the Garissa attack: "The bounty on him has been revised to 20 million Kenyan shillings because he is believed to be the mastermind of this attack", explained a security source of a man already wanted for attacks in northern Kenya last year who had once taught at a Wahhabi-based madrassa.

What upsets the government possibly more than the loss of the students is the declining effect on its economy heavily dependent on tourism. Tourists and investors will now view Kenya as being too risky for them to gamble with their lives or their investment dollars. Hoteliers from its Indian Ocean coastal region and game park preserves note that tourists have begun cancelling their reservations after the latest atrocity.

"[The security services] waited too long and the terrorists had so much time to kill our kids", Isaac Mutisya said, mourning his 23-year-old daughter Risper Mutindi Kasyoka.

Islamist 'Youth' Slaughtering Christian Youth

"They investigated our area. They knew everything."
"We just wondered whether to come out or not."
Helen Titus, Garissa University College survivor

"They were shot there and then. [The killers shouted] 'God is great'!"
Nina Kozel, student, Garissa University College

"Kenya is safe as any country in the world. The travel advisories being issued by our friends  are not genuine."
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta

The very day preceding the Al Shabab attack targeting Christian students in the town of Garissa in the dorms of Garissa University College, the country's president dismissed the warning that Britain had noted, advising "against all but essential travel" to parts of Kenya, specifically including Garissa. A second warning was issued by Australia, mentioning Nairobi and Mombasa as possible venues for terrorist attacks.

"Our inaction is betrayal to these Garissa victims", posted a Kenyan on Twitter with a photograph of what appeared to be a hundred bodies lying face down on a courtyard smothered with blood. As good a barometer as any that Kenyans are feeling fairly vulnerable to a violence that does not knock politely at any portal requesting entrance in a society that would prefer to think of itself as being secure and well protected.

The attack on the university appears to have been well planned. The masked attackers, strapped with explosives and armed with AK47s took dozens of hostages in a dormitory while battling troops and police. A scene of horrifying violence that took a full thirteen hours of firing between security forces and a handful of implacable Islamist terrorists to conclude. Leaving, according to Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery, 148 people killed by the gunmen.

Another 104 people were wounded. Of the dead, 142 were university students, three were policemen, and another three were soldiers. Four or five gunmen took that incredible toll on human life. One of the first things that the gunmen perpetrated on entering the campus early on Thursday was to proceed directly to a lecture hall where Christian students were in prayer session.

Helen Titus, a 21-year-old literature student being treated for a bullet wound to the wrist spoke of smearing blood from classmates on her face and hair, then lying perfectly still in the hope the gunmen would believe her to be dead and not linger the vicinity. She told how the gunmen informed students hiding in their dormitories that they should exit, they wouldn't be killed. "Ladies" in particular would be spared.

In the event, their cunning did little to allay the fear of those in hiding. And they were able to witness that women were shot while Christians were targeted. Students were asked whether they were Muslim or Christian, with the Muslims being given leave to absent themselves, and the Christians slaughtered by the Islamist jihadis.

Nina Kozel described being suddenly awakened by screaming. Many students, she said, escaped by rushing to the fences and leaping over them, suffering bruises but saving their lives. Many men, however, unable to escape, hid under beds and in closets in their rooms, and they were shot to death.
Babu Owino, chairman of the Students Organization for Nairobi University, was critical of the government's reaction to external warning.

Despite the heightened alert, only two armed security guards had been posted on duty at the university on Thursday. And they now too are both dead.

Inexcusable Violations

"As a woman and a mother I am outraged and angered by this inhumane, traumatizing and inexcusable violation."
Amina Mohamed, Kenyan foreign minister

"She is doing very well. They are hopeful she will walk again. We wouldn't know how big a problem rape is in essence just because we do not have all the numbers of reported cases, but from the number of cases that we do receive, it is a very, very high number."
"When you have a statistic that low, [number of convictions] what are you inspiring the public to do? The institutions that are supposed to protect and serve us, for instance police and prosecutors, have to start doing a better job. We have to put it out there that there is going to be punishment for people who sexually violate other people."
Lydia Muthiani, deputy executive director, Coalition on Violence Against Women

AFP

The sixteen year old girl was gang-raped, then thrown into a pit latrine in the western Kenyan town of Tingolo. After hospitalization and care she is in a wheelchair. She underwent two surgeries -- one for a fistula, and the second for spinal surgery. When the girl's mother had originally reported the rape to police they said her daughter should be taken to a pharmacy and take painkillers.

Cultural traditions in rural Africa by custom force a victim of rape to leave her home, and to move to another town where her rape might not be known. The incident which occurred in June received little notice until news sources picked up the sentence meted out to her attackers. Police instructed the young men that they would have to mow the grass at the police post, and then they were permitted to leave, sentence carried out.

Since that time the young girl's plight and the punishment given her rapists have become a tinderbox of inflamed emotions. The Internet activist group Avaaz raised a petition calling for prosecution of the men involved and an investigation of the actions of the police involved. Almost 1.4 million people signed that online petition.

Unfortunately, the whereabouts of the young men involved is currently unknown. The chairman of a council of elders in Busia County where the girl lives wants "severe action" taken against the officers who took the complaint of rape and "mishandled it". Some understatement that is. Kenya's inspector general of police has signalled his support of the victim from his personal Twitter account.

The young girl's grandmother has stated: "I want those policemen that released the boys that they had in custody to arrest the parents of the boys who raped my granddaughter so that they can say where the boys are hiding." It's a start, one might like to think, of a social conversion of a virally vicious custom that has too long made victims of women and girls.

DANIEL IRUNGU/EPA    Women hold underwear as a symbol of calling for change as hundreds of people participate in a rally in Nairobi, Kenya.

Failed Intelligence

Kenya's National Intelligence Service had produced an internal report predating the September 21 Al-Shabab attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, warning that it was aware of Al-Shabab members being in Nairobi "and are planning to mount suicide attacks on undisclosed date, targeting Westgate Mall and Holy Family Basilica." It warned also of "Mumbai-style attacks", so Kenya's intelligence community was in possession of hard facts.

Kenya perhaps, isn't aware that it is incumbent on their intelligence services not only to know these things, but to plan their response should they, as suspected on the evidence at hand, actually occur. Yet they were obviously taken by complete surprise, and had the unmitigated gall to criticize their intelligence partners in the U.S. and Israel for not sufficiently alerting them to the imminence of the attack.

That outside intelligence agencies are expected to be alert to the potential of attack and to have information on their actual occurrence, while the home agency feels justified in letting down their guard and simply resting on the possibility that others will do their work for them, is rather mind-boggling. That, in their defence against charges of incompetence they point a finger of blame elsewhere says volumes.

Belatedly, Interpol was asked to issue an arrest notice for Samantha Lewthwaite, a woman of British origin, as one of the "key actors" in the Nairobi mall attack. Acknowledged in retrospect as the lead planner of the attack, giving orders instantly obeyed by her Al-Shabab cohorts, she was not apprehended. Although perhaps she could have been, pre-attack, if Kenyan intelligence had been sufficiently alert.

The U.S., whom they excoriated for its lack of intelligence and response to a purely Kenyan-Somalia episode of terrorism, made an effort to capture a Kenyan in Somalia, known to have plotted an attack on his country's parliament buildings and the UN Nairobi Headquarters. Kenyan intelligence knows all about him. Did they ever make an effort to collect this Kenyan, in full awareness of his intentions?

The U.S. Navy SEALs' attempt to capture Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir (Ikrima) through a pre-dawn raid in Somalia failed because, unlike Kenyan intelligence and its military, Al-Shabab was alert and conscious of the potential of such an attack which happened to have been carried out by the very unit that raided the bin Laden compound in Pakistan, successfully.

Kenya's National Intelligence Service identifies Mr. Abdulkadir as the lead planner of a plot to carry out multiple attacks in East Africa in late 2011 and early 2012, in collaboration with Al-Qaeda's top henchmen in Pakistan. They have the information but it would appear, sadly enough, not the intelligence in the sense of using the intelligence on hand to act appropriately.

The undisclosed date for the planned suicide attack on the Westgate Mall was just too nebulous for them to grasp, one supposes. Two of the suspects involved were thought to have been wearing suicide vests, making good use of grenades and AK-47 assault rifles. Perhaps the Al-Shabab terrorists grasp the idea that gives them the courage to act in the knowledge that the Kenyan military is incapable of so doing.

Finding looting the premises of the mall far more appealing than confronting the terrorists of Al-Shabab. One of whom may have been Mr. Abdulkadir, or may not have been. In any event, he's still on the loose, and doubtless chortling at the expeditious response of his own terror group in confronting the SEALs in a hail of fire, sufficient to put them off the target.

For fear, they said, that innocents might be injured in the resulting melee.

Condemning Terror

Khalil Senosi / The Associated Press   Somalia's ambassador to Kenya, Mohamed Ali Nur, who lived in Toronto before taking up his post, attends the funeral of a Somali man who died in the Westgate mall attack in Nairobi. 

"We cannot be silent and go without making condemnation. It's the first time for the community to make this kind of effort, so it's a good thing. It's to help the community and get together in solidarity and condemn all the terror acts -- and everywhere, actually, not only for Kenya."
Hassan Abdillahi, Radio Ogaal
"Please come and join us to: condemn and stand united against terrorism; express our heartfelt condolences; pray for the victims of terror; console the survivors; show our solidarity with the people and government of Kenya."
"United Against Terror" rally flyer

J.P. Moczulski for National Post   Organizers Mahdi Abdurahman, left, and Mohamed Chek Omar talk while setting up for what they bill as "A public meeting to condemn the Westgate Mall Terror Attack" in Toronto, October 3, 2013.

"In the face of such acts of despicable terror, we must strengthen our resolve and as we've seen, as Somalia has been successful in rooting out al-Shabab, it's becoming a more regional and global challenge in which Canada is willing to do its part."
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

About twenty Canadians of Somali extraction are thought by Canada's security establishment to have left Canada for the specific purpose of enrolling themselves as part of the terror group al-Shabab, in Somalia. Four of the half-dozen students who left Toronto four years ago to join are now dead jihadists. Another two have purportedly left al-Shabab through disillusionment with its ruthless violence.

One Somali-Canadian is under arrest, facing charges under the Anti-Terrorism Act, stopped at Toronto's Pearson airport en route to Somalia to join al-Shabab. That interruption of his plans may just have saved his life, although he may not appreciate it under the circumstances. His case awaits trial.

There are reports that one of the Nairobi attackers of the Westgate Mall invasion came from Ontario. The RCMP has stated "investigative processes" are underway "that police must follow in gathering evidence to determine any potential involvement by Canadians in terrorist activities outside of Canada." The attackers were described as a multinational group.

The Somali-Canadian community has responded to the attack in Kenya by launching a rally. It was the inspiration and was organized by a popular Somali-language FM station host, Hassan Abdillahi of Radio Ogaal. The "United Against Terror" rally took place in the Toronto neighbourhood, home to ethnic Somalis. It must represent a first, the first time that any Muslim immigrant group raised such an event.

J.P. Moczulski for National Post   Kadra Mohanad distributes Somali flags prior to the start of "A public meeting to condemn the Westgate Mall Terror Attack" in Toronto, October 3, 2013.

 

Somali Canadians are particularly aware of the vulnerability of their young men, attracted to the prospect of being lauded by their religious community in Somalia for taking part in a group that portray themselves as youthful defenders of the faith. Some of the youth have responded to the appeals of recruiters and against the wishes of their families have joined the terror group.

It was expected that both Kenyan and Ethiopian community leaders might wish to join the rally, advertised as: "A public meeting to condemn the Westgate Mall terror attack", and timely in its presentation. Leaders of local mosques and local Members of Parliament were invited to attend.

And while one Somali-Canadian was held to have been among the attackers, two other Canadians were among those killed during the attack.

That the terrorists claimed to have permitted Muslim hostages free passage to safety and targeted only non-Muslims and Westerners has given no comfort to these Somali-Canadian Muslims. The torture and execution of innocent people represented a violation of all expectation of human decency. Such stark inhumanity should be condemned, and it is, universally.

But that the community from which these psychopathic religious fundamentalists have arisen to plague their own society and others as well, has seen its duty in condemning the horrifying acts of outrage against humanity is a comfort to the society within which they have chosen to live and to become an integral part of.

"Nobody Is Left In The School Now"

"Although there is (an) increase in troop movement and military hardware deployment in the northeast, people are yet to see the kind of action on the ground that effectively nips criminal and terrorist activities in the bud."
Governor Ibrahim Gaidam, Yobe State, Nigeria

"Sometimes you need courage" in the face of such challenges as the slaughter of thousands of innocents, cautioned Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan who condemned a deadly attack that took place on Sunday night on an agricultural college, killing 50 students as they slept, in the belief that their nation's military was protecting them from any such deadly onslaughts.

Courage, then, trumps the actual presence of protection. Courage to face the reality of impending threats to life and limb. From a terrorist group which takes its name from what is forbidden: Western knowledge and education. Forbidden, that is, by their standards. Holding that what is pure must now be defiled; Islamic teaching is not to be corrupted by exposure to Western ideas.

A screengrab taken on Sept 25, 2013 from a video distributed through an intermediary to local reporters and seen by AFP, shows a man claiming to be the leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau. A man claiming to be the leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram appeared in a video Wednesday taunting world leaders after the military said he may have been killed. -- PHOTO: AFP 

Because of previous such atrocities when Boko Haram, the country's look-alike Islamist militia to Somalia's al-Shabab, attacked another such college on an earlier occasion, those agricultural schools based on Western models of farming techniques vital to the country's economy and future, shut their doors.

Provost Molima Idi Mato of Yobe State College of Agriculture bemoaned that no security forces were present to protect the college.

When only several weeks earlier the state commissioner for education had beseeched schools and colleges to re-open in reflection of their duty to educate and prepare for the future. And promised that all such schools and colleges would be guarded by soldiers and police, against the possibility of any such further attacks.

Boko Haram has stated its pride in having been responsible for the killing of 50 young people, after having attacked and killed 29 pupils and a teacher, burning some of them alive in their hostels at Mamudo outside Damaturu on July 6. This new attack will be adjudged by Boko Haram as being more successful than the last, encouraging them to continue their successful trajectory.

"They attacked our students while they were sleeping in their hostels. They opened fire at them", said Yobe State College of Agriculture Provost Idi Mato. Most of the victims were between the ages of 18 and 22. Forty-two bodies were recovered, along with 18 wounded students, taken to Damaturu Specialist Hospital. Where two of the wounded died later. Almost all killed were Muslims, reflecting the majority make-up of the college's student body.

The attackers came in all-terrain vehicles and on motorcycles, some of them in Nigerian military uniforms, according to a surviving student. The terrorists seemed to be knowledgeable of the college layout, choosing to attack the four male hostels, bypassing the one hostel that was reserved for women. "We ran into the bush, nobody is left in the school now", said Ibrahim Mohammed.

Preserving the Faithful

"The Mujahideen carried out a meticulous vetting process at the mall and have taken every possible precaution to separate the Muslims from the Kuffar before carrying out their attack."
Al-Shabab

Now affiliated with al-Qaeda which has certain scruples that it insists affiliates respect, al-Shabab has done its superficial recognizance in fulfilment of the articles of faith that reflect Islamic heritage. Muslims do indeed kill, slaughter, maim, assassinate, attack and murder other Muslims, but this is not a truth that the faithful wish to accept. During the U.S.-NATO invasion of Iraq, al-Qaeda affiliates in Iraq earned the repudiation of its al-Qaeda parent by the depths of its vicious depravity.

During that period, the Iraqi al-Qaeda militias were so brutally engaged they slaughtered Iraqi Sunnis along with the Shiite Iraqis, earning the outrage of the Iraqi Sunni community. As a result Iraq's Sunnis agreed to fight alongside American troops with their own brigades, to counter the presence of the infiltrating Sunni Islamists in Anbar Province, with their Awakening brigade.

"The French and the English are to be treated equally: Their blood and their money are halal wherever they may be. No Muslim in any part of the world may co-operate with them in any way... It leads to apostasy and expulsion from Islam. Accordingly, Ethiopians, Kenyans, Ugandans and Burindians are just like the English and the French because they have invaded the Islamic country of Somalia."
"And so all Muslims must stay far away from the enemy and their installations so as not to become human shields for them, and so as not to be hurt by the blows of the mujahedeen directed at the Crusader enemies. There is no excuse for those who live or mingle with the enemies in their locations."
"The mujahedeen are sincere in wanting to spare the blood of their brother Muslims, and they don't want a Muslim to die from the bullets directed at the enemies of God."
Conference of Islamic scholars, Baidoa fatwas

And so, an element of due diligence undertaken when the 14 or so al-Shabab attackers of the Westgate mall in Nairobi questioned the frantically fearful mall shoppers whether they were Muslim, to spare them from the slaughter. A simple acquiescence was insufficient; one had to be able to recite a Quranic scripture, and to recall the name of the Prophet Mohammad's mother. Upon which proof a Muslim was free to leave the slaughterhouse.

This is new for al-Shabab. Their more typical free-wheeling slaughter made no such enquiries. They were accustomed to attacking restaurants packed with diners, crowded bus stations, busy government buildings, all absent the knowledge of whether or not Muslims were present, because, quite simply, it didn't matter. If Muslims were mingling with the kuffar why then, they deserved to suffer the same fate as the Infidel.

And then came the differentiating qualifications when a conference of Islamic scholars met in the Somali town of Baidoa under al-Shabab control in 2011. They set about to define who was a Muslim and what represented an apostate. It is halal -- lawful, to kill and rob those who 'commit crimes' against Islam. Another document warns Muslims to remain separate from non-believers, not even to enter buildings occupied by non-Muslims.

In a spirit of generosity the al-Shabab attackers of the Westgate mall made an attempt to identify Muslims from non-Muslims. In the process killing 67 people, although the Red Cross claims that 59 people are still missing, and it is possible that the morgue which has just emptied itself of bodies claimed by grieving families will once again become full of the unaccounted-for, yet-to-be-discovered dead.

Executing Terror

"Just before the cookery event, I was with about 35 kids including two of my own. Then a grenade went off and then the shots started coming in. One hit the kid beside me. I tried to stop the bleeding, but I didn't know what I was doing... I couldn't save him. They threw quite a few grenades at us. Eventually a gentleman came running towards us with a handgun, and he told us to get up and get out. I saw someone carry my daughter away. I helped all of the kids jump over the wall."
Kamal Kaur

"They came from the basement of the mall and started firing in all directions. Within minutes the floor was littered with bodies. Whoever survived was running helter-skelter in search of cover; it was pure chaos."
Shashikant Sanghani

NBC News

Precisely noon on Saturday, when the Westgate mall in Nairobi was certain to be at its most popularly crowded is when the three-pronged invasion of armed terrorists from al-Shabab made their explosive entrance. Shoppers crowded into the mall's 80 stores; perfect timing. Three assaults on three different levels to cut off escape and push the crowds into a chaotic mass of desperate-to-escape people.

One group in black with turbans, armed with assault weapons at the main entrance. The second group entering the second floor through the rooftop parking lot. The third group down a ramp to the basement. The questioning of the panicked people; Muslims over there, all others remain where you are; reminiscent of the selection process at Nazi concentration camps; Muslims to be spared, non-Muslims slaughtered.

Security forces and the police response was agonizingly slow, but the rescue of people commenced as gunfire and explosions continued. The Kenyan forces, despite the words of confidence and having everything under control, were outmatched, outgunned. They had pistols and tear gas. The intruders had assault rifles guaranteed greater accuracy and penetration. Pistols in the hands of police, useless against the bulletproof vests worn by the jihadists.

A woman was reported to have been giving orders which the others, armed men, obeyed. A shop had been rented by the jihadists for storage of belt-fed heavy machine guns, used against Kenyan troops in the open-aisle supermarket. At the back of every store service entrances where any among the attackers who meant to escape, could.

The initial attack against civilian shoppers by AK-47s and grenades replaced by machine guns used against the military.

Saturday's attack turns into Sunday's hostages and a holding situation along with a search for people remaining in hiding, to be led to safety. Command and control were less than optimum; photos of mall patrons not being cautionary-vetted and processed until latter attack stages. Security perimeter finally established but some of the attackers thought to have left, leaving behind others meant to stay on.

On Tuesday, Kenyan government claims a fire set by the terrorists was responsible for the parking roof collapse. Eventually admitting to an incredulous public that Kenyan soldiers caused the parking garage collapse, firing rocket-propelled grenades into the structure. Firing RPGs into sustaining columns not thought to represent the best of all possible defence-and-secure methods.

AP Photo/Kenya Presidency    This photo released by the Kenya Presidency shows the collapsed upper car park of the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013.

The Honourable Mujahideen

"The Mujahideen carried out a meticulous vetting process at the mall and have taken every possible precaution to separate the Muslims from the Kuffar (disbelievers) before carrying out their attack."
"Our target was to attack the Kenyan (government) on its soil and any part of the Kenyan territory is a legitimate target ... and Kenya should be held responsible for the loss of life, whether foreigners or local."
"Our targets have always been disbelievers, invaders and the apostate government's officials/troops who are allied with them."
Al-Shabab

• 
  This photo released by the Kenya Presidency shows the collapsed upper car park of the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya Thursday, September 26, 2013. Working near bodies crushed by rubble in a bullet-scarred, scorched mall, FBI agents continued fingerprint, DNA and ballistic analysis to help determine the identities and nationalities of victims and al-Shabab gunmen who attacked the shopping center, killing more than 60 people. (photo credit: AP Photo/Kenya Presidency)
  

There is a stark division within Islamism between believers and infidels. The former are blessed and deserving of life, while the latter represent an abomination in the eyes of Allah, and must be consigned to death. Diminishing their numbers satisfactorily. Although an option does exist; forswearing allegiance and belief in any other religion and submitting to Islam will preserve their lives and that of their offspring.

The government of Kenya, like any government, any group, any people, who do not recognize the supremacy of Islam, respect it and follow it, is responsible by their neglect of the divine imperative to rule and dominate, for any and all harm that comes to their citizens. The responsibility is upon them for the punishment meted out to the civilians caught in deadly conflict, through their neglect. When government chooses to ignore the edict of surrender to the faith, there are no innocents within it.

An image posted to Twitter by the al Shabab terror group on Sept. 24, 2013, purportedly shows militants from the Somali group walking inside the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Neither the image's authenticity nor date could be independently verified.

Foreigners therefore, represented a "legitimate target" for the shahids who set out to create a bloodbath at Kenya's Westgate Mall, deliberately targeted because it represented a draw for foreigners, government workers, international diplomats, the wealthy and the privileged. Due diligence was done to ensure that no one by virtue of their Muslim status, was harmed. All others were justly targeted.

Among them Kenyans, Canadians, citizens of France, Trinidad, the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, India, Ghana, South Africa and China. Effectively proving al-Shabab's point, that the country was soiled by the presence of non-believers, kuffars, invaders. The result was the slaughter that sent men, women and children to a swift death with assault rifles and grenades.

And the hostages, the better to engage the Kenyan military and police and security agents with. Any then killed, were their responsibility.

Kenya was warned it would pay and pay dearly for its affront to Islam by sending its military into Somalia to join Ethiopia and other members of the African Union in their hunt for al-Shabab. The impotence of the Kenyans, even with foreign assistance, to cope with a relative handful of mujahideen was symbolic of the disdain in which the Prophet would hold them. It was not they, after all, who destroyed the mall, but the tactics of the Kenyan military.

It was Kenyan soldiers who fired rocket-propelled grenades into the mall, destroying a support column. The soldiers firing in a futile attempt to distract a sniper to enable them to remove the hostages he held. And after four large explosions caused the collapse of the mall, a government minister blamed the mujahideen for setting fires to mattresses as the cause, an entirely unlikely explanation for such a huge destruction.

In its Twitter feed al-Shabab placed that responsibility where they were assertively adamant it belonged; directly with the Kenyan military for unleashing their assault team who managed on their very own to demolish the structure. The ballistic analysis being carried out by FBI agents and other national intelligence agents from Israel, Canada, Britain and Germany would place the responsibility where it belonged.

That is the word, the final analysis of the situation, straight from the young tigers' mouth.

The Danger In Our Midst

by Raheel Raza
September 25, 2013 at 5:00 am

Is it because there are verses in the Qu'ran that can be, and have been, used to justify violence against non-Muslims? If this is the situation, then it is time for us to lift our heads out of the sand, and understand that the enemy is within.

The past week has been bloodier than usual in the Muslim world. Three major attacks in different parts of the world -- Iraq, Pakistan and Kenya -- have one thing in common: they were pre-meditated terror attacks on civilians executed in a wanton manner as part of an armed jihad.

On the attack in Kenya at Nairobi's Westgate Mall, Kenya's President Uhunu Kenyatta made a clear statement: "We shall hunt down the perpetrators wherever they run to. We shall get to them and we shall punish them for this heinous crime. We have overcome terrorist attacks before. We will defeat them again. They want to cause fear and despondency in our country, but we will not be cowed." Then, referring to Somalia's al-Shabab terrorists who claimed responsibility for the assault, he added, "Terrorism is a philosophy of cowards."

For those of us sitting in North America in the wake of such carnage, Kenyatta's words resonate well: he addressed the problem head-on. We look for support to the leader of the free world, the U.S., because the OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation] has let us down by giving priority to their own agenda on Islamophobia in the West and remaining silent when Muslims indulge in wanton terrorism -- in fact, they object to use of the word "terrorist" attached to Muslims. It seems, however, that the free world has a soft stance on terrorism. The only bold statement made a while ago was, "we have destroyed Al-Qaeda." Then why is the U.S. continuing to arm it in Syria?

We have become somewhat immune to the games being played while innocent lives are lost. One of the games is the instant knee-jerk reaction of the apologists and conspiracy theorists. How much more bloodshed and carnage do we have to see and endure before we wake up to the reality that something dangerous has taken root in the heart of the Muslims who kill in the name of faith?

There were two other suicide bombings this week. One in Baghdad and the other in Pakistan where a church was bombed.

What is surprising and baffling is that even today we cannot come to terms with the evidence that we have a serious problem within our ranks.

In Pakistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), considered to be one of the world's largest intelligence agencies, has not contained the violence unleashed upon Pakistan's minorities. According to some recent reports, there is a special squad, financed by petrodollars and sanctioned by the authorities, created exactly for the purpose of killing minorities -- and this is seemingly why nobody to date has been brought to justice. Recently there have also been massive jailbreaks, freeing hundreds of terrorists.

Further, it is rumoured that many shipments of U.S. arms, on their way from Karachi harbor to Afghanistan, have gone missing. Ironically, both the escaped terrorists and the arms surfaced in Syria.
So now, my co-religionists, there are some pressing questions we must ask because our faith as practiced today doesn't embrace humanity, modernity, music, arts or literature. What we have to see is whether the reformists, academics and scholars can pull this faith into the 21^st century to co-exist with others, or will the militant swords cut the hands that hold the pen?

Furthermore, why is it that, when there is even a single death in the "conflict in the Middle East," Pakistanis will beat their chests, run out on the street, and rally with slogans against the USA and Israel -- but do not come out into the streets when their own countrymen massacre entire families of Christians and destroy churches?

And why is it that there is no voice from the pulpit, and the Sunni majority does not even bat an eyelash about the death squads against Shias and the persecution of Ahmedis?

Is it because "Cyber Mullahs," "Hadeeth Hurlers" and "Qu'ran Thumpers" are invoking their interpretation of the Qu'ran, and insisting that armed jihad is valid and needed today while we say it is time to make it obsolete?

Is it because there are verses in the Qu'ran that can be, and have been, used to justify violence against non-Muslims?

If this is the situation, then it is time for us to lift our heads out of the sand, and understand that the enemy is within.

Platitudes about Islam being a faith of peace are not credible anymore. Islam is only as good as the way its followers practice it; and if they have created killing fields in the name of Islam, then Islam will be recognized by the silence of those who did not speak out when their faith was being massacred to massacre humanity.

Related Topics:  Raheel Raza

Somalia's Dismal Dysfunction

It was somewhat reminiscent of the 2008 Islamist attack by Pakistani jihadists, well organized, the well-armed and -rehearsed intruders prepared for a spectacular death toll as they acted out their martyrdom role, stealthily making their way by boat into the harbour at Mumbai, India's financial hub, and one of its largest metropolises, cosmopolitan and wealthy by the standards of the geography. That attack was deadly in its outcome, devastating to India, courtesy of Lashkar-e-Taiba, with links to the Pakistani military.

On this occasion it was another group of Islamists, the Somalian jihadist militia, al-Shabab which dispatched an estimated dozen or more well-armed terrorists to wreak havoc in an upscale Kenya mall known to attract foreigners, diplomats, and the well-heeled out for a day of dining and shopping and entertainment. This was to be the long-rumoured pay-back to Kenya courtesy of al-Shabab for the country's dispatch of its military aligned with the African Union into Somalia to rout the terrorist group into oblivion if they could.

The impression was that the conflict between al-Shabab and the African Union military mission had served successfully to decimate the "The Youth" of Somalia. They were routed from the major cities of Somalia which the administrative government had great difficulty in doing on their own, and in extending their authority any further afield. But while they were chastened, many of their members destroyed, they still held full sway over a large portion of the remote countryside. 

And like the Taliban in Afghanistan they rallied, they re-affirmed their support for and connection with al-Qaeda and strenuously recruited from among disaffected young Somalians whose families had re-located for safety and security elsewhere around the Globe. Their recruitment bore results as young Somali men from Europe, the United States, Canada and elsewhere responded, leaving security for adventure. It is even rumoured that one of the largest contingents of al-Shabab is Kenyan.

It hardly seems credible that young Somali men growing to maturity in an atmosphere of civility, peace and justice would find allure in the promise of vile armed conflict inflicted upon hapless civilians, forcing them to a way of life unfamiliar to them, restraining them from leaving, and refusing to allow foreign humanitarian aid workers to administer medical treatment and food during a time of famine. 

(These are the same Somalians of whom Western intelligence shudders at the prospect they may return to Europe and North America with their newfound skills and allegiances.)

But the attraction obviously was there, and it obviously resonated with those who viewed al-Shabab as 'heroic' in their convictions that they were appointed by god to restore his kingdom back to pure fundamentalist Islam. The shopping mall was not an army base, it represented a sure thing, what is termed by the military a 'soft target', just as what had occurred in Mumbai represented, inflicting bloody carnage on an unprotected society; how could they fail in their mission?

They ran unimpeded through the large shopping mall, going from floor to floor, targeting the most open areas, spraying the most vulnerably exposed with rapidfire bullets from their AK47s, and tossing grenades for maximum effect. This is why they were termed "cowards", but very effective at what they were doing, dispatching over 60 innocent men, women and children to death, guaranteeing their elevation to heroic status and their end to a martyr's Paradise.

The correspondent-journalist Matthew Fisher wrote of his experience in 1993 Somalia, arriving with a Red Cross charter flight at the distant desert town of Belet Huen. Where he witnessed children writhing in the agony of starvation then saw a miracle unfolding as the Red Cross workers speedily unloaded provisions of food and medicine, and fed the starving. The children, he said, soon recovered. And with their recovery came the appreciation.

"...the r e-energized kids started to throw rocks at them (the Red Cross workers). A few metres away, their parents inexplicably laughed and egged their offspring on as their European and North American benefactors danced a painful jig. The relief mission came to an abrupt end, the Red Cross plane returned to Kenya with all of its passengers and most of its cargo and, for a time, the Somalis went back to starving."

He wrote of a later visit to Mogadishu where venturing even a few yards beyond the airport perimeter was to court death. The city was ruled, he wrote, by rival gangs "high from chewing khat who raced around in Mad Max-style pick-up trucks known as 'technicals'." Later, with Canadian paratroops in Velet Huen, military engineers had put up a Bailey bridge. The next morning they viewed the scene of an absent bridge, completely dismantled; every scrap of metal taken away by the locals.

Islamist Assertion

"There was a sudden very heavy burst of gunfire, and simultaneously three explosions, grenades I think, just below us on the pavement.
"Everybody jumped to the ground. The gunmen walked along and then up the stairs. They just started spraying gunfire left and right. Bullets came through to the terrace, there was a European gentleman on the table next to us with his wife, and he was hit in the stomach.
"We were there on the ground, not moving, not putting up our heads, for 30 minutes. The whole time that man was in such terrible pain. We helped him stuff napkins into the wound. It was horrific."
Bushan Vidyarthi , commercial printer

"I just watched one kid turn, then I heard gunfire, so many shots, really loud, and the kid was gone, I hope he just fell down under the table but I don't know.
"There was no time to think. There was just gunfire, then these two guys walked in from the car park, they had guns, big guns, more than an AK. I just ran, back through the kitchen, back into the cold room there, and we slammed the door closed."
Errol Fernandes, businessman

Reuters, Westgate shopping mall, Nairobi

The Westgate mall was targeted by members of the Somali terrorist militia al-Shabab, carrying AK-47s and brandishing grenades to deliver a message. There had been a warning, received long before the attack, that al-Shabab intended to  attack the mall.  As pay-back for Kenya sending its armed forces along with that of Ethiopia to roust the Islamist group from Somalia. That armed conflict has been partially successful but al-Shabab still retains a large segment of the country in their control.

The attackers, speaking Swahili and English called out for Muslims to identify themselves. When people responded they were ordered to speak in Arabic, or to recite a Koranic verse, or to state the name of the Prophet Mohammed's mother. If the test was successfully passed, people were allowed to leave; those who failed the tests were summarily executed, including children.

Noor Khamis / Reuters   A police officer holds a gun to provide cover for customers running out as a shooting took place at the Westgate mall in Nairobi on Sept. 21, 2013.

"A colleague of mine said he was Muslim and recited something in Arabic and they let him go as well. I saw a lot of children and elderly people being shot dead. I don't understand why you would shoot a five-year-old child", said Saadia Ahmed, a Kenyan radio presenter caught up in the assault, who said she witnessed people "say something in Arabic and the gunmen let them go."

In the car park on the rear roof of the building an Asian radio station hosted a yearly cooking show for children called the Junior Super Chief Competition, a popular local event. Counters had been set for 20 teams of three children each, from ages eight to 16 to take part in the contest. Around one in the afternoon the scene of children having fun with their parents was transformed to resemble "an abattoir", described as such by a security officer and former soldier.

Store managers desperately pulled men, women and children into their shops, pulling down metal shutters. Vaults of several banks provided refuge for some fleeing the carnage. Four theatres at the multi-screen cinema had lockable doors and they proved to be a good hiding place. Not so downstairs at the Nakumatt supermarket, crowded with Saturday shoppers with its open-plan, tall aisles, and where the gunmen went first.

"All we could hear were people screaming, more grenades, tear gas bangs and the helicopters overhead. And shooting, we heard a lot of shooting", said 37 year old Brit Rohini Vij who with her daughter Tenisha, 11, were on their way to the cooking event, but hid in the upholstery section of the supermarket, jamming the door tight with tables for protection.

"I hid under a car with my daughters, and I saw the men line up maybe 40 people and ask them who was Muslim, and if they were, to prove it by saying the name of the Prophet's mother. Those who got it wrong  were shot. There was blood everywhere. Two ladies under the car with me had gunshot wounds on their legs... A grenade was thrown and it rolled near us. My daughter said: 'Papa there's a grenade' - but thank God it didn't go off and I kicked it away."
Charles Karami, 41, IT engineer

"We hid inside a cupboard in the coffee shop. The staff then took us to the kitchen. We moved the fridges and freezers to block the passageways. It was a small space, people were panicking, children were crying. We were trying to calm people and tell them not to use their phones, or to keep them on silent. All the time we could hear gun fire. It was a war-like situation."
Surajit Borkakoty

"It was like firecrackers and then a loud bang and I knew at once there were guns and grenades. I tried to get all the kids, as many as I could, and run to a corner ... My two kids were with me at this point and suddenly a grenade went off and there was smoke and kids were screaming and the guy fired shots too.  One missed my son's head by just an inch as his sister had pulled him down, but unfortunately it bounced off the wall and the bullet hit the boy next to my son just as I was trying to pull him down."
Kamal Kaur, with East FM Kenya, hosing the children's cooking competition

Some people trapped inside the mall kept tweeting or texting friends on the outside throughout Saturday. Their batteries were dead by nightfall. Unknown to them then was that hundreds of people were at work through the night with preparations to aid them whenever the siege finally would conclude and come to its agonizing end.

Troops and armed police have completely surrounded the Westgate centre

At least 62 people are thought to have been killed and over 170 injured, although there are fears stated by officials that the death toll may yet mount. Kenyan security forces claim to have taken control of all floors of the Nairobi shopping centre. The ministry of the interior announced it to be unlikely that any hostages still remain unaccounted for. But it is not over until it finally is over, and up to midnight of Monday night, the situation has not yet been entirely resolved.

Kenyan police officers take position during the ongoing military operation at the Westgate Shopping Centre in the capital Nairobi, September 23, 2013.
REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Israeli commando force joins Kenyan military storming Nairobi mall seized by Islamist gunmen

DEBKAfile Special Report September 22, 2013, 3:12 PM (IDT)

Tags:  Kenya,  Al Qaeda,  Al Shabaab,  Terrorists,  Israeli commandos,

Terrorist attack in Nairobi mall

AFP reports from a security source in Nairobi that Israeli special forces joined the Kenyan military in storming the Westgate shopping mall, Sunday, Sept. 22, to break the standoff with some dozen Al Qaeda-linked Somali Al Shabaab gunmen barricaded there with hostages for the second day. The death toll from the Saturday shooting-grenade attack has risen to 59 with 205 people injured. 

 

debkafile, the only world publication to reveal the Israeli involvement from the start of the Nairobi mall attack Saturday, now discloses that the Israeli commandos were airlifted to Kenya when the Westgate mall was first attacked. Nairobi invoked a secret security pact between the two governments under which Jerusalem guarantees military assistance should the Kenyan government be threatened by a foreign force.

This was the first time Israeli special counter-terror forces have fought Al Qaeda terrorists face to face on foreign soil. The Israeli foreign ministery refused to confirm or deny any inovlvement in Kenya.

debkafile reported exclusively Saturday that the AQAP-backed Somali terrorists singled the target out to hit two targets – Kenya and Israel

After releasing Muslims, the raiders held onto an unknown number of hostages, some on the ground floor where Israeli shops are located; more in other parts of the seven-floor building. Unknown too is the number of injured and possibly dead victims, including foreigners, who are still trapped in the building. American, British, Canadian and French citizens were reported killed or injured in the initial attack Saturday.

The Kenyan and Israeli authorities have blanketed with secrecy the scene inside the mall, from which a barrage of gunfire and explosions were heard during the morning. Local police and special forces are trying to force the Islamist gunmen to surrender and give up the hostages.

Israeli security experts are known to be assisting in the operation.

The US sent a commando unit to Nairobi from bases in Italy and the UK, an advance counter-terror forward team. The Cobra cabinet is holding continuous sessions in London as the situation unfolds.

In Israel, no one in authority is willing to comment on the incident, despite Israel’s
involvement. Three Israelis were reported rescued from the mall Saturday, but there is no word on any who may still be trapped there.

Since its creation in 2006, the Somali Al-Shabaab has maintained strong operational ties with the Yemen-based AQAP command for its long and bloody insurgency against the Mogadishu government.  Our counter-terror sources report that the Somali wing receives training, munitions and medical care at al Qaeda’s Yemeni camps. They interact frequently by means of speedboats plying regularly between the Yemen and Somalia.

The scale of the Westgate mall attack, which was carried out by up to a score of well-trained fighting men armed with large quantities of ammunition, pointed to heavy AQAP involvement from the word go.

In the past, Al Qaeda has notoriously singled out American and Israeli targets in East Africa – the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2002 assault on Israeli tourists in Mombasa.

However, the Nairobi attack was related to the present.

Al Qaeda’s eyes and ears in Kenya didn’t miss the military and intelligence assistance Israel renders Kenya for its operations against Islamist terror in two areas: The Israeli army and security bodies send combat equipment and provide tactical advice to the Kenyan units fighting alongside Somali government forces against Al Shabaab; and Israel’s intelligence agencies and police are helping the Kenyan government build a strong shield or barrier against the Somali war’s spillover, to guard against Al Shabaab opening up a second front to the rear of the Kenyan forces fighting across the border.

This protective barrier clearly sprang a large leak Saturday.

See debkafile’s first report on the Westgate Mall attack Saturday, Sept. 21.

Nairobi attack: 'Hostages remain inside shopping centre'

BBC News online -- 22 September 2013

Eyewitnesses saw armed men in black, their heads covered in scarves, entering the Westgate shopping centre on Saturday afternoon

An unknown number of hostages are still inside a shopping centre in the Kenyan capital Nairobi after a deadly assault by al-Shabab militants, say officials.

At least 39 people died when members of the Somali Islamist group stormed the Westgate centre on Saturday.

Officials say the gunmen have been cornered but that people are trapped in a number of locations.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta earlier vowed to "hunt down the perpetrators wherever they run to".

Al-Shabab told the BBC it carried out the attack on the upmarket shopping centre in response to Kenyan military operations in Somalia.

President Uhuru Kenyatta: "We shall hunt down the perpetrators"

There are about 4,000 Kenyan troops in the south of Somalia, where they have been fighting the militants since 2011.

On its Twitter feed, al-Shabab - which has links to al-Qaeda - said it was behind what it called the "Westgate spectacle".

Kenyan officials said "major operations" were under way with police and soldiers preparing an apparent bid to bring an end to the stand-off.

They said the security forces had finally "pinned down" the surviving gunmen.
"The work is continuing, but you cannot rush these things," an army officer posted on the perimeter cordon set up around the mall told the AFP news agency.

"Our teams are there, we are watching and monitoring, we will finish this as soon as we can."

Analysis

Mark Doyle BBC News, with African Union forces in Kismayo, southern Somalia

Kenya has about 4,000 troops in southern Somalia. They intervened in 2011 following attacks and kidnappings in northern Kenya near the Somali border.
The Kenyans were subsequently integrated into a larger African Union (AU) force of 17,000 soldiers. It has a UN mandate to protect the weak Somali government.
In practice this means the AU force - known as Amisom - attack al-Shabab where they can. But al-Shabab still control at least half of southern Somalia.
Al-Shabab respond to Amisom by mounting hit and run attacks. They say Amisom are invaders stopping their legitimate vision of creating an Islamic state.
Here in Kismayo, for example, the airport comes under regular attack by small arms fire suspected to come from al-Shabaab positions. The Kenyan army responds with heavier weapons to chase the attackers away.

The authorities have asked journalists to exercise caution when reporting military developments because the gunmen might be monitoring the media.

"Hostiles suspected to have access to the internet," the Disaster Operation Centre in Nairobi posted on Twitter.

"Reports on personnel movement and progress will not be posted for fear of compromising strategy."
The officials said the number of hostages was "still unknown, but they are in several locations".
"The gunmen have been contained in one location, but there are hostages elsewhere in the vicinity who cannot access the exit".

Upper levels of the mall had been secured, it said.
The attack began at about 12:00 local time (09:00 GMT), when around 10 people entered the Westgate centre throwing grenades and firing automatic weapons. A children's day event was being held at the time - children are among those reported killed.

Some witnesses said the militants told Muslims to leave and said non-Muslims would be targeted.
"They came and said: 'If you are Muslim, stand up. We've come to rescue you'," said Elijah Lamau.
He said the Muslims left with their hands up, and then the gunmen shot two people.

Scores of people fled or were evacuated while police and armed security guards fought running gun battles with the militants throughout the mall for hours.

As night fell in Nairobi, two contingents of army special forces troops were reported to have moved inside the mall.

The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner says a security source told him that at least one of the attackers was a woman who appeared to have some kind of leadership role.

Footage from inside the mall shows the aftermath of the shoot-out

One gunman was arrested and died of his wounds, Kenyan officials told the BBC. Four other gunmen were arrested.

In a televised address on Saturday evening, Mr Kenyatta said security forces were "in the process of neutralising the attackers and securing the mall".

He went on: "We shall hunt down the perpetrators wherever they run to. We shall get to them and we shall punish them for this heinous crime."
He said he had "personally lost family members in the Westgate attack".

Security experts are reported to have long warned that the complex, which is part Israeli-owned, was in danger of being subjected to a terror attack.

Al-Shabab at a glance

• "The Youth" in Arabic
• Formed as a radical offshoot of the Union of Islamic Courts, which controlled Mogadishu, in 2006
• Previously ran much of southern Somalia
• Lost some popular support by banning Western aid agencies during 2011 famine
• Estimated to have 7,000 to 9,000 fighters

The BBC's Mark Doyle, who is embedded with the African Union (AU) mission in Somalia, says the AU troops attack al-Shabab where they can.

Al-Shabab says the AU forces are invaders stopping their legitimate vision of creating an Islamic state and respond by mounting hit-and-run attacks, our correspondent says.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said there would "undoubtedly" be British nationals caught up in Saturday's events, while the US State Department said it had reports that American citizens were injured in what it called "a senseless act of violence".

Two French citizens and two Canadians, including a diplomat, are also among the dead.
Nairobi's mortuary superintendent, Sammy Nyongesa Jacob, told Reuters that Africans, Asians and Caucasians were among the bodies brought to the mortuary.

This is one of the worst incidents in Kenya since the attack on the US embassy in August 1998.

At night descended outside the shopping complex, the siege continued

Many of those who were inside the Westgate centre when the gun battle began managed to flee, but some were trapped.

Armed police combed the corridors as terrified shoppers fled.

This woman who had been held by the gunmen was carried out of the building in a state of shock by the emergency services.

Some went to extraordinary lengths to escape.

This pregnant woman was separated from her husband and two-year-old daughter during the attack. She hid with about 20 others on the roof of the building and was eventually rescued by police and reunited.

Security forces went from shop to shop to secure the building.

Two contingents of army special forces troops are reported to have moved inside the mall as dusk fell.