Chopper raid on Kenya mall killers
- From: AFP
- October 05, 2013
Video shows Kenya mall massacre gunmen 0:42
A video has emerged showing four of the gunmen involved in the massacre at a
shopping centre in Nairobi.
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Sky News
Kenyan troops outside the Westgate
Mall, in Nairobi, Kenya, where the massacre took place. The group responsible
has been hit by a commando raid.
COMMANDOS in an attack helicopter have staged a night raid on a key base of Somalia's Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, the group responsible for the Kenyan mall massacre.
The strike was carried out in the town of Barawe in the hours before morning prayers against what one official said were "high-profile" targets. The strike comes exactly two weeks after al-Shabab militants attacked Nairobi's Westgate Mall, a four-day terrorist assault that killed at least 67 people in neighboring Kenya.
The leader of al-Shabab, Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, also known as Ahmed Godane, claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was in retaliation for Kenya's military deployment inside Somalia.
A resident of Barawe - a seaside town 240km south of Mogadishu - said by telephone that heavy gunfire woke up residents before dawn prayers. An al-Shabab fighter who gave his name as Abu Mohamed said "foreign" soldiers attacked a house, prompting militants to rush to the scene to capture a foreign soldier. Mohamed said that effort was not successful.
The foreign troops attacked a two-storey house close to the beach in Barawe, battling their way inside, said Mohamed, who said he had visited the scene of the attack. Foreign fighters resided in the house, Mohamed said. Al-Shabab has a formal alliance with al-Qaida, and hundreds of foreign fighters from the US, Britain and Middle Eastern countries are known to fight alongside Somali members of al-Shabab.
A Somalia intelligence official said the targets of the raid were "high-profile" foreigners in the house. The intelligence official also said the strike was carried out by a foreign military. Somalia's nascent army does not have the ability to carry out a stealth night-time strike. A second intelligence official also confirmed the attack. Both insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
Foreign militaries - often the US but not always - have carried out several strikes inside Somalia in recent years against al-Shabab or al-Qaida leaders, as well as criminal kidnappers.
A Western intelligence official said it appeared likely that either US or French forces carried out the attack. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
News latest: Inside the deadly attack
Another resident of Barawe, who gave his name as Mohamed Bile, said militants in Barawe closed down the town in the hours after the assault, and that all traffic and movements have been restricted. Militants were carrying out house-to-house searches, likely to find evidence that a spy had given intelligence to a foreign power used to launch the attack, he said.
"We woke up to find al-Shabab fighters had sealed off the area and their hospital is also inaccessible," Bile told The Associated Press by phone. "The town is in a tense mood."
In September 2009, a daylight commando raid carried out by Navy SEALs in Barawe killed six people, including Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, one of the most-wanted al-Qaida operatives in the region and an alleged plotter in the 1998 bombings at US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 250 people.
Military raids carried out by troops on the ground carry the risk of a troops being killed or captured, but they also allow the forces to collect bodies or other material as evidence. Missile strikes from sea of unmanned drones carry less risk to troops but increase the chances of accidental civilian deaths.
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