NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s security forces have killed the takfiri extremist gunmen whose assault on a luxury hotel and shopping complex took 14 "innocent lives,” the country’s president said Wednesday.
"All the terrorists have been eliminated,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said in announcing an end to the overnight operation to secure the complex in the capital, Nairobi.
In a televised address, Kenyatta did not say how many attackers were involved. He said more than 700 people were evacuated during the security operation and urged Kenyans to "go back to work without fear,” saying the East African country is safe.
Sporadic gunfire could be heard while scores of people were rescued at daybreak during what police called a "mopping-up” exercise. A new blast was heard in the afternoon as witnesses said security forces were making a sweep of the complex for any explosives.
Surveillance video showed the attack that began Tuesday afternoon involved at least four armed men.
Al-Shabab — the extremist group allied to Al-Qaeda and based in neighboring Somalia — claimed responsibility for the carnage at the DusitD2 hotel complex, which includes bars, restaurants, offices and banks and is in Nairobi’s well-to-do Westlands neighborhood with many foreign expatriates. Al-Shabab carried out the 2013 attack at the nearby Westgate Mall in Nairobi that killed 67 people.
Most of the victims were Kenyans, a mortuary attendant said. The U.S. State Department confirmed that an American citizen was among the dead, and the company I-DEV International confirmed that its co-founder, Jason Spindler, had been killed. The British high commissioner in Kenya said at least one British national had been killed, without giving details.
Kenyan authorities sent special forces into the hotel to flush out the gunmen. Scores of people were rushed to safety in the early morning hours as explosions and gunfire continued.
"I am a Muslim and I am Somali, I am Kenyan living here, and in that way I can assure you if Al-Shabab found me today they call us what they call ‘Mortad’ (apostates), that is, someone who works against them and they wouldn’t differentiate me from yourself,” said Mohamed Yasin Jama, a friend of two colleagues killed.
Al-Shabab has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia to fight it since 2011. Tuesday’s violence came three years to the day after Al-Shabab extremists attacked a Kenyan military base in Somalia, killing scores of people.