http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/21/us-kenya-attack-idUSBRE98K03V20130921
Gunmen stormed a shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Saturday, killing at least 30 people including children and sending scores fleeing in panic, in an attack claimed by the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab.
Shooting continued hours after the initial assault as troops surrounded the Westgate mall and police and soldiers combed the building, hunting the attackers shop by shop. A police officer inside the building said the gunmen were barricaded inside a Nakumatt supermarket, one of Kenya's biggest chains.
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 assault was the single biggest attack in Kenya 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 coordinated attack.
Some local television stations reported hostages had been taken, but there was no official confirmation.
Kenyan forces first entered Somalia two years ago to try to stem incursions by al Qaeda-linked militants.
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.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said it was too early to draw conclusions. "We don't have any proof that the people who did this are Somali," he told Reuters in Washington.
One woman leaving the building told a journalist that one of the attackers had told all Muslims to leave the area. Another eyewitness who identified himself as Taha said he had heard the screech of brakes followed moments later by an explosion, and then sustained gunfire from the ground floor.
Satpal Singh, 36, who was in a cafe on the mall's top floor, said he ran downstairs when he heard the gunfire and was shot at near the mall's main exit.
"A Somali guy shot at me. The guy who shot me was carrying a rifle, an AK-47."
Some shoppers ran up stairs and escalators and hid around the mall's cinema complex. Police found another terrified group hiding in a toilet on the first floor.
"So far we have 30 dead at the mall," said Kenyan Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Guled. He added he expected more wounded and dead.
Police cordoned off the roads surrounding the mall in central Nairobi's Westlands neighborhood.
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