Kenyan mall attack: Two terrorists killed, 10 suspects arrested

[Mirror]

Kenya's interior minister said gunmen holed up inside a Nairobi shopping mall had caused a plume of smoke by setting mattresses alight in a supermarket as a decoy, and said two of the "terrorists" were killed yesterday.

"We don't want to give you a definitive position on when we think the process will come to an end, but we are doing anything reasonably possible, cautiously though, to bring this process to an end," Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku told a news conference.

The minister also said all the militants were men, although some had dressed as women, possibly explaining witness accounts that some of those who launched the assault on Saturday were women.

Kenyan police yesterday also said they had arrested more than 10 suspects for questioning over the ongoing attack on the mall where at least 69 people have died. "We've arrested more than 10 individuals for questioning in relation to the Westgate attack," police said in a message on their Twitter account.

Kenyan security forces remained locked in a fierce battle with Somali Islamist gunmen inside the upmarket mall yesterday, where thick black smoke billowed out following huge explosions.

Kenya's defence ministry said that "three terrorists have been killed so far", while "a few others have suffered injuries." Operations continued but troops had "sealed all possible escape routes", the ministry said in a statement, adding that the chances of any terrorists escaping were "very slim."

A Kenyan security source and a Western intelligence official said Israeli forces were also involved in the operation, along with British and US agents. Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked al- Shabaab insurgents have claimed the attack, which began midday on Saturday, when the gunmen marched into the complex, firing grenades and automatic weapons and sending panicked shoppers fleeing.

Meanwhile the interior ministry has said the fire in the mall has been contained, although plumes of smoke continued to dominate Nairobi's skyline as night fell. U.S. officials are closely watching efforts by Somalia's Al Shabaab group to recruit in the United States, but have no direct information that Americans were involved in the attack on a Nairobi shopping mall, a U.S. official said yesterday.

"All we've seen are the same reports coming out of Al Shabaab ... but we have to run those to ground," White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters, when asked whether any Americans took part in the assault.

"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 the president to the United Nations.

Source: Kenyan mall attack: Two terrorists killed, 10 suspects arrested