We refuse to be blackmailed and derailed by Raila Odinga

Once again, we have become victims of a cowardly attack that resulted in many deaths and injuries.

My thoughts and prayers are with all those who lost loved ones or who lie in pain with injuries from this attack. We are in this together.

I thank the security officers who put their lives on the line for the sake of our country. I also salute the many ordinary Kenyans and visitors who refused to bullied and picked up their arms to save compatriots and fellow human beings at the Westgate shopping mall.

ACTS OF PATRIOTISM

We noticed these rare acts of courage, patriotism and love. We don’t take them for granted.

These attacks were aimed at ordinary, hardworking Kenyans out to enjoy what the nation they work so hard to build has to offer on a weekend.

The terrorists targeted Nairobians of all races, all colours, all religion and all ages.

They targeted black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, the young and the old.

Yet the objective was to divide us by religion and race and to dictate to us what we can and what we cannot do.

So the terrorists are telling us that they spared Muslims and slaughtered non-Muslims.

We must reject this cheap lie. We have seen our Muslim compatriots burying their dead from this attack.

The terrorists want to separate us from our friends abroad. So they are repeating how among the attackers were recruits from US, UK, Canada, among other Western nations.

Yet we know that these nations also lost citizens in this attack and their security and intelligence agencies are currently helping us get to the bottom of this crime.

The terrorists are telling us they are Al-Shabaab with recruits from Somalia who want us to withdraw our troops from that country.

What a lie! We have seen Kenyans of Somali origin also burying their dead from the Westgate attack. We also know Al-Shabaab is rejected even within Somalia where people are enjoying peace since the gang was routed out of key towns.

We equally saw Kenyans of Somali ethnic origin volunteer and take the war to the terrorists to rescue fellow human beings at the Westgate Mall.
Let us call the attackers of Westgate by their name: terrorists.

They are people who have lost all sense of humanity and for whom words like brother, sister, dear country and fellow citizen no longer exist.
Nairobi is the biggest and most cosmopolitan city in East and Central Africa. Citizens of nearly every nation on earth are found in Nairobi.

Those who attack us do it not because they want to hurt members of any particular faith, race or nationality. They do it to attack the human race in its rainbow formation at one go. That is what they did at Westgate.

Our response must be to stand together with the injured, the bereaved and the community of nations that believe in freedom, even as we seek answers to the many questions that Kenyans will rightly be asking.

BETTER RESPONSE TO THREATS

Even as we stand together, we must demand a more serious, more convincing and a better-coordinated response to the security lapses that have become part of life in Kenya.

As we engage terrorists abroad, we must see clear indications that we have taken steps to detect and deter attacks that terrorists plot against us.

I know many such planned attacks have been nipped in the bud but we must up our game and our people must be convinced that we are doing all that we can. Today, a number of citizens think so much remains to be done.

I can’t blame them. For much of this year, attacks have become the order of the day in places like Moyale, Garissa, Lodwar, Samburu, Turkana and Nairobi, among others.

Security has deteriorated in places like Bungoma, Busia, Tana River, Mwingi, Kitui and Kuria.

Many attacks in Northern Kenya seem to be the work of sleeper terror cells out to test our preparedness and resolve.

Even where the attacks may not be by terrorists, their frequent occurrences paint a picture of a lawless nation. That is the platform on which terrorists act best. We must dismantle that platform.

We need to prevent these attacks and to deal with those plotting them in a manner that clearly shows we know what they are trying and what is at stake.

It is my hope that in the coming days, as a reward to our citizens for their patriotism, the government will publish a review of its intelligence and security on this attack.

DEVASTATING BLOW

Of course, we expect the government to leave out material that would prejudice the work of our agencies.

As a nation, we have taken a devastating blow.

But I also feel very proud to be a Kenyan at this moment because it is clear that our spirit is not broken, our focus not dimmed.

We have refused to allow the terrorists to derail the flow of life in our country and we have refused to turn against each other as they hoped.

Our airports, our roads and our port are operating at full capacity. Soon, Westgate itself will be up and running.

We refuse to be blackmailed and derailed.

Our soldiers must continue the good work in Somalia where they have made life more bearable, particularly for girls, women, children and the youth.

Thanks to our soldiers, schools, colleges and universities have reopened in Mogadishu and the youth are once again able to pursue education and build a secure future, while new-born children are being vaccinated against preventable diseases and girls are able to go to school. We shall remain the force for good.

As a nation, we are ready as ever to receive friends from abroad with the open arms and genuine smiles that we are known for.

Terrorists shall never change who we are.

Raila Odinga is a former Prime Minister of Kenya. 

We refuse to be blackmailed and derailed by Raila Odinga

Interview Abdul Hajj recounts rescuing Westgate Hostages

What if the Nairobi attack that feels close to home by Lindsey Hilsum

What if the Nairobi attack that feels close to home by Lindsey Hilsum

Nairobi Shopping mall attack all we could hear was screaming and shooting by Mike Pflanz

Midway through the morning, a detachment of Kenyan special forces troops sprinted up the dozen shallow steps to the front of Nairobi’s upmarket Westgate shopping mall, by then firmly under the control of a gang of Islamist gunmen.

Armed police beckon a woman and child to safety. At least 30 people were killed in the atrocity, the worst terror attack in Nairobi since an al-Qaeda bombing at the US embassy killed more than 200 in 1998. Photo: Goran Tomasevic /Reuters

By Mike Pflanz, Nairobi

10:44PM BST 22 Sep 2013

After a tense standoff, they had planned to storm the building and take control of a situation becoming more deadly by the hour. But the glass doors were blocked.

Only when the troops forced their way through did they realise that dead bodies, as many as 20, had been piled against the entry to slow the soldiers’ access.

Stumbling inside, they immediately came under sniper fire from high up on the second floor balcony. Two died. The rest were forced to pull back.

This was the moment, relayed to The Daily Telegraph by security staff and community workers helping the troops, that the professionalism and ferocity of those holding the shopping mall hostages began to become clear.

By last night, the gang – a unit of up to 15 Islamists, including men and women, and claimed to have been sent by al-Shabaab, Somalia’s al-Qaeda proxy – had held off the best of Kenya’s armed forces for more than 30 hours.

They were said to be in control of dozens of hostages, holed up in a lavatory block close to a supermarket on the ground floor. The Kenyan president refused to deny the suggestion that some of the captives had explosives strapped to them.
As darkness fell last night, there were signs that the Kenyan military, backed by Israeli agents, was attempting to bring the standoff to a conclusion.
The sound of a large explosion and brief volleys of gunfire interrupted hours of stalemate. Witnesses at the scene saw security personnel on the move and, as dusk closed, two helicopters swooped low over the shopping centre, which has several Israeli-owned outlets and is frequented by prosperous Kenyans and foreigners. Mobile phone signals also began to fail in the area.
“Godspeed to our guys in the Westgate building,” Kenya’s National Disaster Operation Centre said in a message on its Twitter site. “Major engagement ongoing.”
Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s president said the chances of the siege ending well were “as good … as we can hope for”, before pledging to “punish the masterminds swiftly and painfully”.
A Twitter account, purported to be from al-Shabaab, gloated about the “Westgate Warriors” and described the terrorised Kenyans as “like rabbits caught in the headlights, still shell-shocked.”
As the Kenyan troops attempted to end the siege, the group tweeted: “Kenyan forces who’ve just attempted a roof landing must know that they are jeopardising the lives of all the hostages.”
The reason the Islamists targeted the Westgate shopping centre was clear from the moment they stormed inside brandishing AK-47s and grenades. Anyone who was not a Muslim, or could not prove that they were, was immediately targeted. Reports from separate floors of the building in the first hours of the assault told how the attackers, speaking rough Swahili and English, shouted at Muslims to identify themselves.
Many people came forward. They were ordered to speak in Arabic, or to recite a verse from the Koran, or to name the Prophet Mohammed’s mother. Those who passed this test were allowed to flee. Those that did not were executed, including children.
“People soon realised not to try to cheat,” said Charles Karani, an IT engineer who watched from beneath a 4x4 in the rooftop car park where he was hiding with his daughters aged eight and four.
Saadia Ahmed, a Kenyan radio presenter who was caught in the assault, said she saw people “say something in Arabic and the gunmen let them go”.
“A colleague of mine said he was Muslim and recited something in Arabic and they let him go as well,” she said. “I saw a lot of children and elderly people being shot dead. I don’t understand why you would shoot a five-year-old child.”
There had been no suggestion of the attack earlier on Saturday morning at the Westgate Mall, which was expecting 10,000 people to pass through its doors over the weekend.
On the terrace of the upmarket Art Caffe , shaded from the noonday sun beneath wide white umbrellas, Bushan Vidyarthi, a commercial printer, was sitting drinking a cappuccino with his brother and a supplier.
A Somali man in a smart suit walked past on the pavement below, his phone to his ear. For months there had been warnings that Westgate could be a target for Islamists. When will it happen, Mr Vidyarthi remembers thinking to himself.
Within 15 minutes, it happened. “There was a sudden very heavy burst of gunfire, and simultaneously three explosions, grenades I think, just below us on the pavement,” Mr Vidyarthi said.
“Everybody jumped to the ground. The gunmen walked along and then up the stairs. They just started spraying gunfire left and right. Bullets came through to the terrace, there was a European gentleman on the table next to us with his wife, and he was hit in the stomach.
“We were there on the ground, not moving, not putting up our heads, for 30 minutes. The whole time that man was in such terrible pain. We helped him stuff napkins into the wound. It was horrific.”
Three floors above Mr Vidyarthi, in the car park on the rear roof of the building, an Asian radio station was hosting the Junior Super Chef Competition, a cookery show for children.
Next to the yellow-and-blue bouncy castle and the trampolines, counters had been set up for 20 teams of three children each, aged eight to 16. A little before 12.30pm, the scene was of a typical sunny family day out.
Within half an hour, it would resemble “an abattoir”, in the words of one hardened security officer and former soldier who went later to try to help.
Errol Fernandes, a businessman, was sitting in the Westgate’s other smart café, Java House, on the mall’s top floor, with a view straight out to the car park.
“I just watched one kid turn, then I heard gunfire, so many shots, really loud, and the kid was gone, I hope he just fell down under the table but I don’t know,” he said. “There was no time to think. There was just gunfire, then these two guys walked in from the car park, they had guns, big guns, more than an AK. I just ran, back through the kitchen, back into the cold room there, and we slammed the door closed.”
Later they were able to flee, out to the roof, past the carnage and down a fire escape to safety. Further into the building, on the second floor, the two groups of attackers met, some coming up from the ground, some down from the roof.
Store managers dragged men, women and children into their shops and hurriedly pulled down flimsy metal shutters that looked like they would provide little protection from the heavy bullets of the attackers’ rifles. Some places were safer. The thick-doored vaults of the several banks with branches at Westgate were best. The four theatres at the multi-screen cinema were also a good option, with their lockable doors and darkness.
Downstairs in the Nakumatt supermarket, which was full of Saturday shoppers, was not a good place to be. Open-plan and with tall aisles stocked with imported foods, it was one of the first places that the gunmen moved into.
Rohini Bij, 37, a Briton, and her daughter Tanisha, 11, were on their way to the cookery event but hid in the stitching room in the supermarket’s upholstery section, jamming the door with tables, as gunfire rang out again and again outside. “All we could hear were people screaming, more grenades, tear gas bangs and the helicopters overhead,” she said. “And shooting, we heard a lot of shooting.
“I had put a lot of pressure on my daughter to go to the cookery competition and I kept apologising for bringing her. She took my hand and told me, I am just glad that I am here so that you have company. That gave me such strength.”
Peter Churchman, his wife and their young niece had been in the Art Caffe on the ground floor when the attack began. The first he knew of it was when a plate-glass window shattered. More gunshots followed and a loud blast. “I think it was a grenade, it made a lot of sound. We ran to the entrance.”
With people running in all directions, Mr Churchman, an executive at Standard Chartered Bank, was separated from his Filipina wife, Eva, for several hours.
Some inside the mall spent Saturday tweeting or texting friends on the outside. By nightfall, batteries were dead. They would have no way of knowing that hundreds of people were working through the night to prepare to help them whenever the siege finally ends.

Nairobi shopping mall attack all we could hear was screaming and shouting by Mike Pflanz 


Update related article Terror in Kenya : literature and laughs turn into pain and loss by Paula Kahumbu

I have just received news that a friend lost a colleague and his 17 year old son at Westgate, may they rest in peace.

President Kenyatta, Raila Odinga and Mudavadi address Kenya

Attack on Westgate Mall Nairobi Kenya

 

I received a call from my mother earlier today asking me whether I had heard of the attact at Westgate, or whether it was just a rumour. So, I checked the news, and sadly it was true. So far at least 22 people are said to be dead, and soldiers have moved in. My heart goes out to everyone who got caught up in this shooting, some have died, some taken hostage. It is horrific.

Here is some of the rescue operation in pictures.

Another sad day for Kenya.



Update: 11 people confirmed dead, and 29 admitted.

Kenya Stockholm has some shocking photos here, part one, 

part two  and part three

Al-Shabaab have claimed responsibility for the attack. They say attack is retributive justice for crimes committed by Kenyan military.

Update two

Two world class photographers at Westgate Mall, Goran Tomasevic  and Tyler Hicks

Update three Al-Shabaab tell Channel four news foreigners are not safe in Kenya