At least 30 dead in Kenya mall attack claimed by militants

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -

Terrified shoppers huddled in back hallways and prayed they would not be found by the Islamic extremist gunmen lobbing grenades and firing assault rifles inside Nairobi's top mall yesterday. When the coast was thought to be clear, crying mothers clutching small children and blood-splattered men sprinted out of the four-storey mall.

At least 30 people were killed in the assault, with fears the toll could rise further, said Kenya Red Cross official Abbas Gullet.

The al-Qaida-linked gunmen asked the victims they had cornered if they were Muslim: If the answer was yes, several witnesses said, those people were free to go. The non-Muslims were not.

Somalia's Islamic extremist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility and said the attack was retribution for Kenyan forces' 2011 push into Somalia. The rebels threatened more attacks.

Foreigners in the mix

Foreigners are expected to be among the casualties.

As night fell in Kenya's capital, hostages remained inside the mall, but officials didn't or couldn't say how many. Two contingents of army special forces troops had moved inside as the stand-off stretched into its ninth hour.

Police and military surrounded the huge shopping complex as helicopters buzzed overhead. An Associated Press reporter said he saw a wounded Kenyan soldier put into an ambulance at nightfall, an indication, perhaps, of a continuing shoot-out inside.

Witnesses said at least five gunmen - including at least one woman - first attacked an outdoor café at Nairobi's Westgate Mall, a shiny, new shopping centre that hosts Nike, Adidas and Bose stores. The mall's ownership is Israeli, and security experts have long said the structure made an attractive terrorist target.

The attack began shortly after noon with bursts of gunfire and grenades. Shoppers - expatriates and rich Kenyans - fled in any direction that might be safe: into back corners of stores, back service hallways and bank vaults. Over the next several hours, pockets of people poured out of the mall as undercover police moved in. Some of the wounded were moved out in shopping carts.

"We started by hearing gunshots downstairs and outside. Later we heard them come inside. We took cover. Then we saw two gunmen wearing black turbans. I saw them shoot," said Patrick Kuria, an employee at Artcaffe, the restaurant with shady outdoor seating.

Frank Mugungu, an off-duty army sergeant major, said he saw four male attackers and one female attacker. "One was Somali. The others were black," he said.

Al-Shabab, on its Twitter feed, said that it has many times warned Kenya's government that failure to remove its forces from Somalia "would have severe consequences".

The group claimed that its gunmen had killed 100 people, but its assertions are often exaggerated.