Kenya: Westgate attackers refused to negotiate, ‘only wanted to kill’
By Busolami Idowu
Investigators and the people of Kenya on Wednesday, still coming to grips with a vicious attack and armed standoff that ended on tuesday with all the perpetrators believed to be either detained or dead.
Emerging details paint a picture of the horror and drama over four days, as well as of the actions and mindset of perpetrators believed to belong to the Somalia-based Al-Shabaab militant group.
A senior Kenyan government official said they took “very few” people captive; the attackers were primarily out for blood. They ‘were not interested in hostage-taking’ the official said. “They only wanted to kill.” The militants didn’t respond to efforts to negotiate, he adds
In the course of the attack six security officers, at least five terrorists and at least 61 civilians dead, president says “We wanted to negotiate,” said the Kenyan official. “They didn’t even respond.”
We’ll never know the thinking of the five terrorists killed including a still unidentified woman, according to the official, who added it’s too early to tell whether she’s British national Samantha Lewthwaite.
Whether or not they do, investigators will continue to dig for clues. Some of them — including the final tally of people taken hostage, as well as the number of attackers killed — could be gleaned from what is left of three collapsed floors of the once pristine mall.
Yet it is possible that the at least 11 people arrested in connection with the attack could offer fresh insights, according to President Uhuru Kenyatta. One of them is a British national, the UK foreign office said Wednesday.
The president promised “full accountability” for the “mindless destruction, deaths, pain, loss and suffering we have all undergone” in a nationally televised speech.
“These cowards will meet justice, as will their accomplices and patrons wherever they are,” Kenyatta vowed.
The worst of the bloodshed took place Saturday, when the gunmen entered a mall full of shoppers and diners.
Kenyan soldiers and police entered the mall by late Saturday, and the attackers eventually regrouped in an area near a grocery store and a bank.
“(They) all went to one corner,” the senior government official said.
But even after five suspected terrorists died in fighting Sunday, the crisis stretched on. On Monday a fire broke out. Militants set it as a diversion, as they tried to escape, the Kenyan official said. The attempt failed.
“They lit the fire to create a smokescreen,” he said. “Two of them drove out from the parking lot, and we forced them back in.”
Gunshots broke out yet again Tuesday, though the same source said it was from authorities “shooting into the air to see if there would be a response” not because the attackers were firing back.
“You see, Westgate is a complicated building,” the official said, talking about the prolonged operation. “Anyone who is familiar with that building knows it is very complicated.”