Al-Shabab (Somali Al Qaeda ) Shot Up Nairobi Shopping Mall

[Broomstick]

From Al Jazeera:

Al-Shabab gunmen remain holed up in Nairobi mall after deadly shooting
At least 39 people were killed and more than 150 injured, as security forces work to free remaining hostages

Early Sunday morning in Kenya -- 12 hours after a deadly shooting attack left at least 39 people dead in an upscale mall in the capital Nairobi -- gunmen from the armed Somali group al-Shabab remained holed up inside with an unknown number of hostages, according to The Associated Press.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who said members of his own family were among the dead, called the security operation under way "delicate" and said a top priority was to safeguard hostages.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the Saturday shooting, which also injured more than 150 people.

The Somali group confirmed to Al Jazeera that it was behind the deadly attack, which began shortly after noon local time Saturday, after posting a series of ominous statements on Twitter.

Throughout Saturday, security forces searched for shoppers hiding within the Westgate mall, popular with wealthy Kenyans and expatriates.

According to Marie Harf, deputy spokeswoman for the State Department, American citizens were among those injured. Harf also said that according to local media reports about 10 gunmen attacked the mall.

U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden issued a statement condemning the attack.

"The perpetrators of this heinous act must be brought to justice, and we have offered our full support to the Kenyan government to do so," Hayden said.

Kenyan military and police surrounded the mall Saturday, which had been hosting a children's day event, and helicopters flew overhead as gunmen remained inside hours after the attack occurred.

President Kenyatta said via Twitter Saturday that one of the gunmen had been arrested. Later Saturday, he reported that the gunman had died from bullet wounds, according to Reuters.
Gunfire and grenades

Bursts of gunfire were heard outside the shopping mall, where shoppers ran for cover and left cars abandoned. Witnesses said six grenades also went off along with lobbies of AK-47 gunfire.

The gunmen announced that non-Muslims would be targeted, said Elijah Kamau, who was at the mall at the time of the attack.

"The gunmen told Muslims to stand up and leave. They were safe, and non-Muslims would be targeted," Kamau told AP.

Jay Patel, who sought cover on an upper floor in the mall when the shooting began, said that when he looked out of a window onto the upper parking deck of the mall he saw the gunmen with a group of people.

Patel said that as the attackers were talking, some of the people stood up and left, while others were shot.

The gunmen carried AK-47s and wore vests with hand grenades on them, said Manish Turohit, 18, who hid in a parking garage for two hours.

"They just came in and threw a grenade. We were running and they opened fire. They were shouting and firing," he told AP after marching out of the mall in a line of 15 people who all held their hands in the air, in an apparent attempt to not be shot.

Rob Vandijk, who works at the Dutch embassy, said he was eating at a restaurant inside the mall when attackers lobbed hand grenades inside the building. He said gunfire then burst out and people screamed as they dropped to the ground.

It appears the attack began at the outdoor seating area of Artcaffe at the front of the mall, witnesses said.

Kenya -- which sent troops into Somalia in late 2011 to pursue al-Qaeda-linked fighters -- has suffered a string of retaliatory gun and grenade attacks claimed by the armed group al-Shabaab.

Last month, four Kenyan police officers were shot dead in the border county of Garissa when 40 heavily armed men, suspected of belonging to al-Shabab, attacked a police post, a senior regional government official said.

In July, al-Shabab released two Kenyan government officials it had seized in a 2012 cross-border attack, after holding them hostage in Somalia for more than a year.

Al Qaeda are just so damn brave, shooting unarmed men, women, and children. Fuckers.

[Rogue 9]

NPR maintains there's been no claim of responsibility and Al-Shabab is praising the attack via social media without actually saying they did it.

[cosmicalstorm]

They specifically targeted a cooking contest for children. An Indian man who could not name Muhammeds mother was shot amongst others. Reminds me of Bombay 2008.

[Broomstick]

By the way, just for the record, the name of the Prophet Muhammad's mother is "Amina". Just in case someone pulls that shit again.

Oh, and while hiding in an air vent is such a dramatic convention in TV and film as to be trite, apparently it can work in real life:



Not quite sure how the lady got up there in the first place (adrenalin-fueled burst of athleticism?) but good on her for surviving.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Apparently Israeli special forces are in the area now.

[Rogue 9]

According to who? That doesn't seem the sort of thing they'd just tell everyone.

[Jerry the Vampire]

Same way the SAS was revealed to the world when the worlds cameras are on a building you spot special forces.

[Broomstick]

I'm a bit puzzled as to why Israeli special forces would be involved in such a situation in Kenya...

Al Jazeera is reporting that the Israelis are providing "security advisors", but that's not the same thing as special forces. Not that there is anything wrong with the Kenyans asking or accepting aid from anyone in dealing with the situation.

I don't for a minute believe this is just about what Kenya has done in Somalia. The Westgate mall is clearly a place where people of many nationalities are commonly found. This was done not just to somehow punish Kenyans for whatever perceived actions have crawled up the collective ass of Al-Shabab, it's been done to piss off and - yes, I'll use the word - terrorize as many people as possible by getting as many other nationalities sending their media to Nairobi to cover the massacre.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Looks like the article I found that from is gone. I think they conflated Istaeli owned mall with Israeli spec-ops joining in, rather than local Kenyan ones.

[bobalot]

I'm not sure what these terrorists seek to achieve from shooting defenceless men, women and children in a shopping centre.

[GuppyShark]

They seek to pressure the government and people of Kenya to stop acting against them.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm a bit puzzled as to why Israeli special forces would be involved in such a situation in Kenya...

Al Jazeera is reporting that the Israelis are providing "security advisors", but that's not the same thing as special forces.

The roles can overlap- the Green Berets were literally invented to act as 'advisors,' although that was to raise guerilla forces.

This was done not just to somehow punish Kenyans for whatever perceived actions have crawled up the collective ass of Al-Shabab, it's been done to piss off and - yes, I'll use the word - terrorize as many people as possible by getting as many other nationalities sending their media to Nairobi to cover the massacre.

Cross-compare to the target selection of the World Trade Center on 9/11. The broad river of ideologies that "Al-Qaeda" groups (original and modern) adhere to tends to regard global capitalism and the international economy as its enemy, because that's part of what's "contaminating" the culture of Islam and making it hard for fundamentalists to rewrite that culture.

They seek to pressure the government and people of Kenya to stop acting against them.

Or, given normal terrorist playbooks, they seek to do the opposite- lure the Kenyans into overreacting in a way that will give the terrorists more support among extremists in their home country.

[Highlord Laan]

I'm not sure what these terrorists seek to achieve from shooting defenceless men, women and children in a shopping centre.

They're subhuman scum that know nothing but cowardice. Their objectives don't matter.

[PeZook]

I think the idea was to provoke an assault that would result in a horrible massacre. That can actually topple governments sometimes, and should not be dismissed as a tactic.

[Broomstick]

A massacre can topple a government, but it requires a government already on the verge of revolution in order to happen. Kenya is far from perfect, but I see it as a more stable system than that.

[PeZook]

A massacre can topple a government, but it requires a government already on the verge of revolution in order to happen. Kenya is far from perfect, but I see it as a more stable system than that.

It depends ; Even a country that is stable in general can have its government toppled and replaced, and you don't need the target country to descend into anarchy to "win": if the new government is less inclined to intervene against your group's goals, that's basically enough.

I don't know enough about Kenya to actually comment on whether or not that's likely, though, but I think that was the idea: from what we know, the attackers began shooting hostages basically immediately.

[Simon_Jester]

And, again, in this case the Somalian terrorists might actually benefit from an interventionist Kenya- because it might enable them to unite various Somalian factions against a Kenyan occupation force.

A massacre can topple a government, but it requires a government already on the verge of revolution in order to happen. Kenya is far from perfect, but I see it as a more stable system than that.

Note that "topple a government" here could include the parliamentary sense of the word- important ministers leaving office and being replaced by others.

[cosmicalstorm]

Americans, Swedes, British citizens are rumored to be involved. Reminds me of the Utoya massacre a couple of years ago.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Americans, Swedes, British citizens are rumored to be involved. Reminds me of the Utoya massacre a couple of years ago.

The news agencies here are reporting that 6 Brits are among the dead, including one guy who was shot along with his heavily-pregnant girlfriend. According to survivors the terrorists were shooting anyone who couldn't recite some verse from the Koran. Apparently it's become a siege that's lasted 3 days so far, with unknown numbers of hostages.

[Broomstick]

They were shooting people who didn't know the name of the prophet's mother.

[Covenant]

Since people seem to be talking about this, I do wonder, is there a standard modus operandi amongst groups that resort to terrorism like this? Before you just say no, and say that they're insane or only capable of coward idiot aggression, there is still a pattern of behavior that seems to spread and inspire others. So even if it doesn't come out of a playbook, it seems to be the kind of thing that works... kinda. Right now there seem to be two theories:

Is it that they want their target to overreact, giving their ideology the support of fighting a noble cause?

Is it that they want their target to be cowed, and shy away from interfering with their plans?

It might be just me but these seem mutually exclusive, and I can't see either case resulting from a massacre of helpless civilians. I'm not sure that this kind of assault has EVER worked against a "superior" foe, even as a strictly military endeavor. It's the Pearl Harbor strategy, without the chance of reducing your enemy's material advantage. It'd be like if the Japanese had missed Pearl Harbor and blew up Coney Island.

I suppose that an insane ideology may be founded upon principles that, in realistic terms, don't make any sense. But this seems to be such a grotesque act of barbarism that it would not only encourage other radicals to distance themselves from these people, but provoke a counter-offensive that will leave their organization worse off than when they started. I know that it doesn't always go that way, but it seems like the sort of thing someone would have to expect. I cannot see any end-game scenario that has this "work" at all. Am I wrong to dismiss them as lunatics? If I were in a position of power with a red button or something, would my advisors be telling me something aside from "They're lunatics, sir" the way they seem?

I'm not advocating blowing up the countryside they came from, I'm just curious if there's anything more than this than a repeating cycle of crazy behavior, counter-attack that blows away 50 insane paramilitary radicals, and repeat.

I'm also curious what a "proportional response" to gunning down a children's cooking show is. Not in a sarcastic way, I'm actually curious. Fighting these people is an unenviable job.

[cosmicalstorm]

I wonder how many hundred posts this thread would have had by now if this had been ten white christian guys going into a mall spraying everyone with automatic weapon fire who could not recite bible passages?

[Simon_Jester]

More- but then, it would be more of a surprise, and therefore more 'news-like.' Here, no one is especially startled that it happened, so we're just having a rather detached discussion of the subject.

Since people seem to be talking about this, I do wonder, is there a standard modus operandi amongst groups that resort to terrorism like this? Before you just say no, and say that they're insane or only capable of coward idiot aggression, there is still a pattern of behavior that seems to spread and inspire others. So even if it doesn't come out of a playbook, it seems to be the kind of thing that works... kinda. Right now there seem to be two theories:

Is it that they want their target to overreact, giving their ideology the support of fighting a noble cause?

Is it that they want their target to be cowed, and shy away from interfering with their plans?

It might be just me but these seem mutually exclusive, and I can't see either case resulting from a massacre of helpless civilians. I'm not sure that this kind of assault has EVER worked against a "superior" foe, even as a strictly military endeavor. It's the Pearl Harbor strategy, without the chance of reducing your enemy's material advantage. It'd be like if the Japanese had missed Pearl Harbor and blew up Coney Island.

Terrorist warfare is totally based around moral/psychological/political strategies; it's only adopted by a faction which is so weak materially that they cannot possibly hope to win by material means, even through guerilla warfare.

Basically, if you are a terrorist, and your strategy hinges on materially weakening the enemy, you've already lost- because nothing you could possibly do would weaken the enemy's material resources enough to give you victory.

Conversely, if you are fighting terrorists, your entire strategy revolves around finding some meaningful way to use your utterly overwhelming material advantage- if you can ever really hit them directly, with even 1% of your strength, they lose.

Thus, you'd expect terrorist tactics to be opposite and counterintuitive to those of normal warfare. The ultimate goal (force the enemy to do our will through acts of violence) hasn't changed. But removing the possibility of ever actually defeating the enemy by destroying his strength changes all the details.

If you want to understand the strategy, my guesstimate would be to model it after what happened with Al Qaeda. The original Al Qaeda is basically pulverized by now, but as a result of their high-profile attacks, and the highly visible response by the US, the ideology that might be called "Al Qaedaism" has spread so many roots throughout the Middle East that it will take a major cultural shift in Islamic civilization to seriously threaten it. It has become invincible, short of mass nuclear destruction of Middle Eastern lands, and even that might not actually get rid of the idea as such.

So when Al Qaeda goaded the US into attacking it in Afghanistan, and as a side effect invading Iraq, it sealed its own doom as an organization, but guaranteed its own survival as an ideology. An endless stream of locals with grudges would act as guerillas to wear down the US's moral and political leverage in the Middle East. The US occupation would make the US an unpopular alternative to Islamic fundamentalism, and would make it... for lack of a better term, 'cool' for self-identified rebels against the Western hegemon to affiliate themselves with Al Qaeda.


"Al Qaeda in Somalia" might well be trying to do the same thing on a local level, by provoking Kenyan action against the lawlessness in Somalia, that the original Al Qaeda did on a regional level, by provoking US action against the entire Middle East.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Word is that now the terrorists have been killed and the mall secured.

According to the news reports, the terrorists had on hand way more weapons/ammunition than what they could conceivably carry on the day. The theories go that since they stashed the weapons prior to the attack, they rented one of the shops to store them and in the process gained access to the service entrances as well as getting to know the layout of the building.

The news also showed how a mother and her two kids survived by playing possum, they only dared to move when one of the Kenyan special forces guys crawled over to where they were lying to reassure them that they were safe, before leading them out of the building.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

More- but then, it would be more of a surprise, and therefore more 'news-like.' Here, no one is especially startled that it happened, so we're just having a rather detached discussion of the subject.

Since people seem to be talking about this, I do wonder, is there a standard modus operandi amongst groups that resort to terrorism like this? Before you just say no, and say that they're insane or only capable of coward idiot aggression, there is still a pattern of behavior that seems to spread and inspire others. So even if it doesn't come out of a playbook, it seems to be the kind of thing that works... kinda. Right now there seem to be two theories:

Is it that they want their target to overreact, giving their ideology the support of fighting a noble cause?

Is it that they want their target to be cowed, and shy away from interfering with their plans?

It might be just me but these seem mutually exclusive, and I can't see either case resulting from a massacre of helpless civilians. I'm not sure that this kind of assault has EVER worked against a "superior" foe, even as a strictly military endeavor. It's the Pearl Harbor strategy, without the chance of reducing your enemy's material advantage. It'd be like if the Japanese had missed Pearl Harbor and blew up Coney Island.

Terrorist warfare is totally based around moral/psychological/political strategies; it's only adopted by a faction which is so weak materially that they cannot possibly hope to win by material means, even through guerilla warfare.

Basically, if you are a terrorist, and your strategy hinges on materially weakening the enemy, you've already lost- because nothing you could possibly do would weaken the enemy's material resources enough to give you victory.

Conversely, if you are fighting terrorists, your entire strategy revolves around finding some meaningful way to use your utterly overwhelming material advantage- if you can ever really hit them directly, with even 1% of your strength, they lose.

Thus, you'd expect terrorist tactics to be opposite and counterintuitive to those of normal warfare. The ultimate goal (force the enemy to do our will through acts of violence) hasn't changed. But removing the possibility of ever actually defeating the enemy by destroying his strength changes all the details.

If you want to understand the strategy, my guesstimate would be to model it after what happened with Al Qaeda. The original Al Qaeda is basically pulverized by now, but as a result of their high-profile attacks, and the highly visible response by the US, the ideology that might be called "Al Qaedaism" has spread so many roots throughout the Middle East that it will take a major cultural shift in Islamic civilization to seriously threaten it. It has become invincible, short of mass nuclear destruction of Middle Eastern lands, and even that might not actually get rid of the idea as such.

So when Al Qaeda goaded the US into attacking it in Afghanistan, and as a side effect invading Iraq, it sealed its own doom as an organization, but guaranteed its own survival as an ideology. An endless stream of locals with grudges would act as guerillas to wear down the US's moral and political leverage in the Middle East. The US occupation would make the US an unpopular alternative to Islamic fundamentalism, and would make it... for lack of a better term, 'cool' for self-identified rebels against the Western hegemon to affiliate themselves with Al Qaeda.


"Al Qaeda in Somalia" might well be trying to do the same thing on a local level, by provoking Kenyan action against the lawlessness in Somalia, that the original Al Qaeda did on a regional level, by provoking US action against the entire Middle East.

I think you give Al Qaeda too much credit. 9/11 was terrible PR for militant Islam. Middle Easterners who had previously been neutral or even sympathized with AQ and similar movements started to turn away. It wasn't until our moron-in-chief started launching invasions and throwing around terms like "crusade" and "Axis of Evil" that recruitment picked up again. The architects of 9/11 thought that the world would rise up against The Great Satan as soon as they struck the first blow, and instead it turned against them. They never had the foresight to imagine that their enemies would so recklessly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the hearts and minds of the region.

Every time militant Islamists pull a stunt like this mall shooting, they put a nail in the coffin of their own movement by making the same mistake as the Bush administration and trying to fight a psychological war purely with physical violence. There was and is no brilliant master plan, here. Just a bunch of sexually frustrated losers with delusions of grandeur. All the rational portion of humanity needs to do is resist the urge to fly off the handle, prevent and contain the damage as much as possible, and win the PR war. Militant Islam doesn't need help to decisively defeat itself.