Some answers may be revealed in blood-stained halls or deep in the rubble of Nairobi's Westgate Mall. Others may never be known.
That's the reality for
investigators and the people of Kenya on Wednesday, still coming to
grips with a vicious attack and armed standoff that ended a day earlier
with all the perpetrators believed to be either detained or dead.
Details continue to
emerge that paint an ever-clearer picture of the horror and drama that
transpired over those four days, as well as of the actions and mindset
of perpetrators believed to belong to the Somalia-based Al-Shabaab
terrorist group.
It all started on
Saturday when they -- after reportedly escorting out Muslims -- stormed
into the upscale mall and began shooting. A senior Kenyan government
official said there were actually "very few" innocents taken captive;
the attackers, firstly, were out for blood.
"They were not interested in hostage-taking," the official said. "They only wanted to kill."
One thing they did not
want to do was talk -- as, at one point early in the crisis, Al-Shabaab
stated flatly on Twitter, it would not do.
"We wanted to negotiate. They were not responding," 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. Yet it is possible
11 arrested arrested people in connection to the attack could offer
fresh insights, according to President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Whether or not they do,
investigators will continue literally to dig for clues. Some of them --
including the finally tally of innocents taken hostage, as well as the
number of attackers killed -- could be gleamed from what is left of
three collapsed floors of the once pristine mall.
Referring to the final death toll, the government official said: "That is subject to (examination) of the area collapsed."
Attackers 'all went to one corner'
Without accounting for
whomever may be buried in that rubble, Kenyatta said Tuesday that at
least 61 civilians and six security officers had died in the attack, in
addition to some 175 injured.
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.
Some caught in the
crosshairs didn't survive. Others took shelter wherever they could -- in
bathroom stalls and stairwells and various nooks of the expansive mall.
Even after the vast
majority of people were gone by Saturday night, a few remained trapped.
Despite being hampered by prank calls made from around Kenya,
authorities were able to rescue at least six people including one woman
who'd taken refuge in a car trunk, the government official said.
Kenyan soldiers and
police themselves made their way into mall by late Saturday, and the
attackers eventually regrouped in an area near a Nakumatt grocery store
and Barclays bank branch.
"(They) all went to one corner," the senior government official said.
But even after the five suspected terrorists died in fighting Sunday, the crisis stretched on.
A big development Monday
was a fire that broke out -- one that the Kenyan official says was set
by militants trying to escape, to no avail.
"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."
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