Upscale Mall Becomes War Zone in Kenya Terror Attack

REUBEN KYAMA and NICHOLAS KULISH

 

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times -Attack on a Nairobi Mall: A group of armed men killed and injured people at an upscale Nairobi shopping center. 

 

NAIROBI, Kenya — An upscale mall popular with the Kenyan elite and the foreign diplomats and businesspeople who call Nairobi home turned into a war zone on Saturday, as gunmen opened fire on shoppers in an apparent terrorist attack, killing at least 30 people and wounding dozens more. 

At nightfall, the mall remained sealed off to the public as police officers and soldiers searched floor by floor for the gunmen, who were still believed to be inside with hostages. 

Witnesses described hearing explosions and gunfire as they fled, leaving behind blood, broken glass and carnage in what was apparently one of the worst terrorist attacks in the country’s history. 

Joseph Momanyi, 26, an employee at the Nakumatt grocery store in the mall, called Westgate, said that as he was running away he heard the attackers shouting that “Muslims should leave” the complex. 

Hours after the attack began, the Shabab, the ferocious Somali militant group that has been linked to past attacks in Kenya, suggested in a series of Twitter posts that its fighters were responsible for the massacre. 

“The attack at Westgate Mall is just a very tiny fraction of what Muslims in Somalia experience at the hands of Kenyan invaders,” one post said. 

Others continued: “By land, air and sea, Kenyan forces invaded our Muslim country, killing hundreds of Muslims in the process and displacing thousands more. The Kenyan government, however, turned a deaf ear to our repeated warnings and continued to massacre innocent Muslims in Somalia.” It said it had warned the Kenyan government that failure to remove its forces from Somalia “would have severe consequences.” 

Even before the rise of the Shabab, Kenya was a target for terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda, like the 1998 bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi and coordinated attacks on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa and an Israeli airliner in 2002. But Kenya has found itself ever more enmeshed in the bloody volatility of Somalia since October 2011, when Kenyan military forces invaded Somalia to help fight the Shabab. The Kenyan authorities blame the militant Islamist group for a grenade and gunfire attack on two churches last year that killed 15 people. 

Nevertheless, Kenya is widely considered a beacon of stability in an often unstable region. The United Nations has a hub here, as do many nonprofit organizations and corporations. The country’s economy is heavily dependent on tourist revenue, with peaceful safaris and gentle holidays on the coast attracting people from all over the world. 

Gen. Abbas Guled, the secretary general of the Kenyan Red Cross, said in a phone interview on Saturday that 30 people had been killed and more than 60 wounded in Saturday’s attack. The police had not yet confirmed any fatalities. Local news media reported that one wounded suspect had been detained at a hospital. 

The State Department said it had reports that several Americans were among the wounded, although it declined to elaborate, citing privacy reasons. “We condemn this senseless act of violence that has resulted in death and injury for many innocent men, women, and children,” said a department spokeswoman, Marie Harf. 

Stephen Opiyo, 25, who was working at a supermarket there, said: “We heard gunshots and started running, trying to find an escape route. I saw many people who had suffered gunshot injuries, and some have been taken away to hospital.”

Witnesses described attackers using AK-47 rifles and throwing grenades. Photographs from the scene showed a woman’s bloody body being lifted out of a car, the glass of the window shattered. 

Vivian Atieno, 26, who works on the first floor of the mall, described “intense shooting,” starting around 11 a.m., before she escaped through a fire exit.

Haron Mwachia, 20, a cleaner at the mall, said he escaped by climbing over a wall. “I heard several gunshots and managed to run away,” he said. 

“It was a horrible experience to me, and I was extremely afraid,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” 

Military helicopters hovered overhead as the police kept bystanders away from the scene. The police said they had surrounded the mall, and officers were seen clearing the shops one by one. 

“Our officers are on the ground carrying out an evacuation of those inside as they search for the attackers, who are said to be inside,” Inspector General David Kimaiyo of the Kenyan police told Agence France-Presse. 

Agence France-Presse reported that the gunmen had taken at least seven hostages, citing police officers and security guards at the scene. The Red Cross reported around 5 p.m. on its Twitter account that the hostages were being released.

Benson Kibue, the Nairobi police chief, told The Associated Press that it was a terrorist attack and that there were probably no more than 10 gunmen involved. Earlier, Mr. Kibue said the attack had been part of an attempted robbery. 

Saturday’s attack ruptured the bubble of safety that surrounds the affluent districts of the Kenyan capital. The mall is in many ways like an American shopping mall, with a Converse store, a tapas restaurant and a corner where children can play while their parents shop and eat. 

On weekends, Westgate is bustling with shoppers, including well-to-do Kenyans and members of the city’s large contingent of expatriates. Brightly lighted, with peach-colored pillars and a marble stairway, the mall has more than 80 stores covering 350,000 square feet. 

Many shopping malls in Nairobi have security guards outside, checking vehicles, searching bags and using metal-detecting wands on visitors before they enter. But the guards — lightly armed, if at all — would be no match for assailants armed with automatic rifles. 

Ilana Stein, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the attack took place near the ArtCaffe, an Israeli-owned coffee shop and bakery popular with foreigners that is one of 80 businesses in the mall. Ms. Stein said that one Israeli was lightly injured and three others escaped unharmed, and that the Kenyan interior minister said Israelis were not being targeted. “This time, the story is not about Israel,” Ms. Stein said. “The minister is saying that this is an internal Kenyan issue. His security forces tell him that this terror organization was not targeting Israelis.”

For years, there have been growing concerns that the Shabab would try to pull off a significant attack here in reprisal for Kenya’s deployment of troops in Somalia.

The group has executed revenge attacks on other African countries that sent troops to Somalia, including Uganda. In July 2010, the Shabab killed more than 70 people who had gathered at a restaurant and a rugby field in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, to watch the final match of the World Cup.     

Reuben Kyama reported from Nairobi, and Nicholas Kulish from Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. Tyler Hicks contributed reporting from Nairobi, and Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem.