KENYA: Relatives of president among scores killed in shopping mall attack

Record ID: 362721

  • Title: KENYA: Relatives of president among scores killed in shopping mall attack
  • Date: 21st September 2013
  • Summary: NAIROBI, KENYA (SEPTEMBER 21, 2013) (REUTERS) NIGHT SHOTS OF WESTGATE MALL EXTERIOR WITH SPORADIC SOUND OF HELICOPTER HOVERING OVERHEAD / SOUND OF POLICE CAR SIREN
  • Embargoed: 6th October 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Crime
  • Reuters ID: LVA5TIDCWEWJUEZ0EF5MEH1BS66R
  • Story Text: Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Saturday (September 21) at least 39 people had been killed by "terrorists" and 150 more wounded in a gun attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi, and pledged that his government would hunt down those responsible.
    "The despicable perpetrators of this cowardly act hoped to intimidate, divide and cause despondency amongst Kenyans. They would like us to retreat into a close, fearful and fractured society where trust, unity and enterprise are difficult to master," Kenyatta said in a televised address to the nation.
    The Kenyan president, dressed in a casual brown shirt and looking sombre, said he had also lost loved ones in the attack and urged Kenyans to unite in this difficult time.
    "I ask God to give you comfort as you confront this tragedy and I know what you feel having also, personally, lost very close family members in this attack."
    "We have overcome terrorist attacks before," he said, "In fact we have fought courageously and defeated them within and outside our borders. We will defeat them again," he added.
    The Westgate mall attack was the single biggest since al Qaeda's east Africa cell bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, in 1998 killing more than 200 people. In 2002, the same militant cell attacked an Israeli-owned hotel and tried to shoot down an Israeli jet in a co-ordinated attack.
    Al Shabaab, which is battling Kenyan and other African peacekeepers in Somalia, had repeatedly threatened attacks on Kenyan soil if Nairobi does not pull its troops out of the Horn of Africa country.
    "The Kenyan govt (government) is pleading with our Mujahideen (holy warriors) inside the mall for negotiations," the group said on its official Twitter handle @HSM_Press. "There will be no negotiations whatsoever at #Westgate."
    Another al-Shabaab tweet read: "For long we have waged war against the Kenyans in our land, now it's time to shift the battleground and take the war to their land."
    Al Shabaab, which Kenya blames for shootings, bombings and grenade attacks against churches and the security forces, had threatened before to strike Westgate, a mall popular with the city's expatriates, as well as other soft targets such as nightclubs and hotels known to be popular with Westerners.
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