By JASON STRAZIUSO
People run from the Westgate Mall, an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya Saturday Sept. 21 2013, where shooting erupted when armed men staged an attack. A witness to the attacks at Nairobi’s upscale mall says that gunmen told Muslims to stand up and leave and that non-Muslims would be targeted. Initial police reports had described the incident as a botched robbery. Witnesses say a half dozen grenades also went off along with volleys of gunfire in and around the mall. (AP Photo/Jason Straziuso
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A Kenya Red Cross official says at least 22 people have been killed in an attack on an upscale Nairobi mall.
Abbas Gullet said Saturday there are likely more dead from the attack that saw gunmen using grenades and gunfire. Kenya’s military surrounded the Westgate mall hours after the midday attack in the upscale Westlands neighborhood in Kenya’s capital.
Nairobi police Chief Benson Kibue blamed the attack on terrorists, though he did not name a group.
A witness said that the attackers said they were targeting non-Muslims.
An al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group had threatened large-scale attacks on Kenya for sending its military into Somalia.
