Kenya's military says 'most' hostages freed after forces launch attack on militants inside mall

Fox News ^ | 9-22-12

[rawhide]

"Most" of the hostages who have been holed up at an upscale shopping mall in Kenya's capital after it was attacked by members of an Al Qaeda-linked Somali militant group on Saturday have been freed, Kenya's military says.

Kenya's armed forces launched a "major" assault on the militants on Sunday night -- about 30 hours after the Islamists stormed the Nairobi mall in an attack that left at least 68 dead and 175 injured. At around midnight local time, Kenya's Defence Forces said it had rescued most hostages and had taken control of most of the mall, but declined to give numbers. Officials said four Kenyan military personnel were wounded in the operation.

"This will end tonight," Kenya's Disaster Operation Center earlier said.

The announcement of the military assault came after Associated Press reporters said they heard a large explosion followed by silence.

[envisio]

Assuming a muslim is going to attack is racial profiling and you are not supposed to say that. /s

That that, folks, is how we are going to die.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, said in a national address Sunday that "We will punish the masterminds swiftly and indeed very painfully."

He looked and sounded pretty good on TV. I wonder if we can trade our Kenyan for him.

[raisetheroof]

He is too busy blaming the NRA for stuff here and will probably add Kenya to his commentary.

It's quite telling that, according to gunpolicy.org, similar to Chicago, civilians in Kenya are not permitted to have the kinds of weapons that were used.

[Lent]

The religion of crap has been splitting or trying to split apart one of the more civilized African countries. Terminate with extreme prejudice.

[littleharbour]

Coming soon to a shopping mall near you. This incident (and the hotel siege a couple of years ago in India) highlights how vulnerable western society is to any sort of coordinated attack on anywhere where people congregate. A handful of well armed terrorists can inflict an incredible amount of carnage on a gathering of unarmed civilians before the police or military could respond, and they don’t need to resort to explosives. They are talking about 5 terrorists killing likely over a hundred people, wounding a couple of hundred more and destroying a retail facility. It could just as easily happen at a basketball arena, baseball stadium or race track (well at least the ones in New England). We’ve already seen how a single gunman can cause havoc inside of a military institution because of gun restrictions, so it’s only a matter of time before we see this type of coordinated attack at a shopping mall or sports facility somewhere in the US.