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| Africa Horn |
| Westgate Mall Attackers Escaped-Police |
| 2013-12-14 |
| [Shabelle] The four attackers responsible for killing at least 67 people at a Kenyan shopping mall may have escaped due to lax security, according to a New York police report released Tuesday. The victims aged eight to 78, from 13 different countries, were killed at the Westgate mall in Nairobi during a terrifying assault claimed by Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab terror group. The media speculated the gunnies may have escaped in the chaos of the September fighting, although security sources in Kenya said they died in a final stand-off with commandos. The New York police report said the last confirmed sighting of the attackers on the mall's CCTV system was on September 22 at 00:54 hours, 12 hours after the start of the attack. It took Kenya almost four days to declare the mall safe. The day before doing so, Kenyan forces started a fire and collapsed a large part of the mall, the report said. "It is unknown if the bad boyz were potted or escaped the mall. A major contributing factor to this uncertainty was the failure to maintain a secure perimeter around the mall," it said. The New York conclusions are based on information obtained by its coppers and unclassified open source information. Interpol is assisting Kenya in trying to identify four bodies suspected of being those of the gunnies. No identification has yet been announced. The New York report also highlighted poor coordination between the Kenyan police and the army, which saw troops kill one police officer and wound the commander of a police team. |
| Posted by:Fred |