Kenya Says Security Forces Have Taken Control Of Mall, Gunfire Reportedly Heard

[HuffingtonPost]

* Fate of fighters, people listed as missing remains unclear                

* Kenya to remain pillar of east African stability -Obama                

* Besieged mall symbol of African economic boom                

By Duncan Miriri and James Macharia                

NAIROBI, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Kenya said its security forces  had taken control of the Nairobi shopping mall where Islamist  fighters killed at least 62 people, and that police were doing a  final sweep of shops early Tuesday after the last of the  hostages had been rescued.                

An overnight eerie silence outside the mall was broken at  daybreak following a loud burst of gunfire heard coming from  inside the Westgate mall, suggesting that the complex had not  yet been secured. A lone military chopper circled above.                

A trickle of survivors escaped the building throughout the  day on Monday, but the fate of people listed as missing was  unclear.                

Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group has claimed  responsibility for the attack, which began at lunchtime on  Saturday. Kenyan officials say there were 10 to 15 attackers.                

President Barack Obama offered U.S. support, saying he  believed Kenya - the scene of one of al Qaeda's first major  attacks, in 1998, and a neighbour of chaotic Somalia - would  continue to be a regional pillar of stability.                

Kenyan security forces believed the end was in sight for the  siege at the upmarket shopping mall in the capital, saying its  forces were "in control" as the ordeal entered its fourth day.                

A government official said there was no resistance from the  attackers late on Monday night after a barrage of gunfire and  blasts throughout the day, but that the security forces were  cautious in case some attackers were hiding in the building.                

"Our forces are combing the mall floor by floor looking for  anyone left behind. We believe all hostages have been released,"  the Ministry of Interior said on Twitter.                

The siege has followed a pattern of bursts of gunfire and  activity followed by long lulls.                

Patronised by well-to-do Kenyans and expatriates, Westgate  mall epitomised the African consumer bonanza that is drawing  foreign investment - from West and East - to one of the world's  fastest growing regions.                

Al Qaeda killed more than 200 people when it bombed the U.S.  Embassy in Nairobi in 1998. When fighters from its Somali  ideological counterpart stormed the mall on Saturday, they hit a  high-profile symbol of Kenya's economic power.                

Obama, whose father was born in Kenya, said the United  States stood with Kenyans against "this terrible outrage."                

"We will provide them with whatever law enforcement support  that is necessary. And we are confident that Kenya will continue  to be a pillar of stability in eastern Africa," he said in New  York.                

Kenya has sent troops to Somalia as part of an African Union  force trying to stabilise the country, which was long without a  functioning government, and push back al Shabaab.                

It has also suffered internal instability. President Uhuru  Kenyatta, who lost a nephew in the weekend bloodbath, faces  charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal  Court for his alleged role in coordinating violence after  disputed elections in 2007. He denies the charges.                

Kenyatta has dismissed a demand that he pull Kenyan forces  out of Somalia, saying he would not relent in a "war on terror."                

British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said he believed  six Britons had died in the attack. Other known foreign victims  are from China, Ghana, France, the Netherlands and Canada.  Kenyan officials said the total death toll was at least 62.                                

FOREIGN FIGHTERS                

Kenya believes there are also foreigners among the  attackers, with military chief Julius Karangi saying they came  from all over the world. "We are fighting global terrorism  here," he said, without giving their nationalities.                

Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said in a U.S.  television interview that "two or three Americans" and a British  woman were among the attackers.                

She told the "PBS Newshour" show that the Americans were  "young men, about between maybe 18 and 19" years old. "Of Somali  origin or Arab origin, but that lived in the U.S., in Minnesota  and one other place," Mohamed said.                

U.S. authorities are urgently looking into information given  by the Kenyan government that residents of Western countries,  including the United States, may have been among the attackers,  U.S. security sources said.                

White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said  he had no direct information that Americans had participated in  the attack, but expressed U.S. worries.                

"We do monitor very carefully and have for some time been  concerned about efforts by al Shabaab to recruit Americans or  U.S. persons to come to Somalia," Rhodes told reporters  travelling with Obama to the United Nations in New York.                

Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said the militants had  set fire to mattresses in a supermarket on the mall's lower  floors and his ministry later said the blaze was under control.  Two attackers were killed on Monday, taking the total of dead  militants so far to three, he told a news conference.                

Speculation rose about the identity of the attackers. Ole  Lenku said they were all men but that some had dressed as women.                

Despite his comments, one intelligence officer and two  soldiers told Reuters that one of the dead militants was a white  woman. This is likely to fuel speculation that she is the wanted  widow of one of the suicide bombers who together killed more  than 50 people on London's transport system in 2005.                

Called the "white widow" by the British press, Samantha  Lewthwaite is wanted in connection with an alleged plot to  attack hotels and restaurants in Kenya. Asked if the dead woman  was Lewthwaite, the intelligence officer said: "We don't know."                

A spokesman for al Shabaab warned they would kill hostages  if Kenyan troops tried to storm their positions. "The mujahideen  will kill the hostages if the enemies use force," Sheikh Ali  Mohamud Rage said in an online audio statement.                

From Mali to Algeria, Nigeria to Kenya, violent Islamist  groups - tapping into local poverty, conflict, inequality or  exclusion but espousing a similar anti-Western, anti-Christian  creed - are striking at state authority and international  interests, both economic and political.                

John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, said he  believed insurgents such as those who rebelled in Mali last  year, the Nigerian Boko Haram Islamist sect and the Nairobi mall  raiders were also partly motivated by anger with what he called  "pervasive malgovernance" in Africa.                

"This is undoubtedly anti-Western and anti-Christian but it  also taps into a lot of deep popular anger against the political  economy in which they find themselves, in which a very small  group of people are basically raking off the wealth," he said.

Source: Kenya Says Security Forces Have Taken Control Of Mall, Gunfire Reportedly Heard