NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s security forces have killed the 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 operation to secure the complex in the capital, Nairobi.
In a televised address, he 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.
In the hours before Kenyatta spoke, sporadic gunfire could be heard from the scene after scores of people were rescued at daybreak during what police called a “mopping-up” exercise.
Surveillance video showed the attack involved at least four armed men.
Al-Shabab — the extremist group allied to al-Qaida 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.
The U.S. State Department confirmed that an American citizen was among those killed, but did not release the victim’s identity. The British high commissioner in Kenya said at least one British national had been killed, without giving details.
Authorities sent special forces into the hotel to flush out the gunmen. At dawn, another explosion and gunfire were heard. Scores of people were rushed to safety in the early morning hours.
“To God be the Glory. We have been rescued. Over 50 people in my group. No injuries,” tweeted a Kenyan businesswoman, Aggie Asiimwe Konde.
Describing the ordeal, Lucy Wanjiru said she had been trying to flee when she saw a woman on the ground floor get shot. She ended up in a washroom with several other scared people. Her friend Cynthia Kibe stayed in contact with her by phone overnight.
“I think I panicked when she told me that the gunshots are next to her,” Kibe said. “I had to keep telling her ‘Just wait, help is on the way, they are almost there, they are almost there.’ And then at one point she was like, ‘Please tell me I am getting out of here alive’ and then it was just like my breaking point.”
Mourning families and friends gathered at a nearby mortuary.
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