At least 135 dead in massacres in Pakistan, Kenya
Via WND.com
WASHINGTON – Just a day after Muslim terrorists stormed a shopping mall in Kenya, killing at least 59, the Taliban is suspected of orchestrating a suicide bomb attack on an historic church in Pakistan, killing at least 75.
Hundreds more were injured in the attacks that began midday yesterday in Nairobi, Kenya.
The latest attack this morning in Peshawar, Pakistan, occurred as hundreds of worshipers were coming out of the church in the city’s Kohati Gate district after services to get a free meal of rice offered on the front lawn, said a top government administrator, Sahibzada Anees.
“There were blasts and there was hell for all of us,” Nazir John, who was at the church with at least 400 other worshipers, told the Associated Press. “When I got my senses back, I found nothing but smoke, dust, blood and screaming people. I saw severed body parts and blood all around.”
Blood stained the floors and white walls of the All Saints Church in the worst church attack in the country’s history. The floor was littered with bodies and plates of rice.
The suicide bombers detonated their explosives almost simultaneously, said police. Authorities were recovering body parts in a grisly effort to identify the victims and their ages.
The blasts killed more than 60 people and wounded 120, said Arshad Javed, top health official at the hospital in Peshawar where the victims were being treated. The dead included several women and children, said Sher Ali Khan, another doctor at the hospital.
The hospital ran out of caskets and beds for the wounded.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
“This is the deadliest attack against Christians in our country,” said Irfan Jamil, bishop of the eastern city of Lahore.
Meanwhile, the death toll is rising in Kenya, where Saturday an al-Qaida terror affiliate attacked a shopping mall in the capital city of Nairobi, killing at least 59 and wounding hundreds with gunfire in a coordinated attack.
Israeli military advisers are reportedly involved in routing out the terrorists, who are still holding hostages inside the mall.
Attackers released five hostages around 1:30 a.m. local time – about 6:30 p.m. Eastern. However, they are refusing to negotiate with Kenyan authorities and reported to be digging in for a long siege.
Two gunmen are reported dead. Kenyan Cabinet Secretary of the Interior Joseph Ole Lenku announced in a press briefing shortly that the government believed between 10 and 15 gunmen were still inside the Westgate shopping mall and described the situation as “delicate.”
About 293 civilians have already been treated for injuries, but authorities are running out of blood for transfusions. The wounded range in age from 2 to 78, according to police.
Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked terror group based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack and vowed not to negotiate with Kenyan authorities. It claimed that “all Muslims” were escorted from the mall before the attack — suggesting that its targets were people who were all non-Muslim.
“The Mujahideen are still strong inside Westgate Mall and still holding their ground,” the group said late Saturday via Twitter. “All praise is due to Allah!”
Police tweeted that the attackers “have been isolated and pinned down in a room by security forces.” And Lenku hinted that the worst should be over.
“Our security forces have taken control of the situation,” Lenku said.
“Attackers of Westgate shopping mall have been isolated and pinned down in a room by security forces in the ongoing operation,” the national police said on Twitter.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
“This is the deadliest attack against Christians in our country,” said Irfan Jamil, bishop of the eastern city of Lahore.
Meanwhile, the death toll is rising in Kenya, where Saturday an al-Qaida terror affiliate attacked a shopping mall in the capital city of Nairobi, killing at least 59 and wounding hundreds with gunfire in a coordinated attack.
Israeli military advisers are reportedly involved in routing out the terrorists, who are still holding hostages inside the mall.
Attackers released five hostages around 1:30 a.m. local time – about 6:30 p.m. Eastern. However, they are refusing to negotiate with Kenyan authorities and reported to be digging in for a long siege.
Two gunmen are reported dead. Kenyan Cabinet Secretary of the Interior Joseph Ole Lenku announced in a press briefing shortly that the government believed between 10 and 15 gunmen were still inside the Westgate shopping mall and described the situation as “delicate.”
About 293 civilians have already been treated for injuries, but authorities are running out of blood for transfusions. The wounded range in age from 2 to 78, according to police.
Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked terror group based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack and vowed not to negotiate with Kenyan authorities. It claimed that “all Muslims” were escorted from the mall before the attack — suggesting that its targets were people who were all non-Muslim.
“The Mujahideen are still strong inside Westgate Mall and still holding their ground,” the group said late Saturday via Twitter. “All praise is due to Allah!”
Police tweeted that the attackers “have been isolated and pinned down in a room by security forces.” And Lenku hinted that the worst should be over.
“Our security forces have taken control of the situation,” Lenku said.
“Attackers of Westgate shopping mall have been isolated and pinned down in a room by security forces in the ongoing operation,” the national police said on Twitter.
The U.S. State Department has confirmed four Americans were among the wounded. It condemned “this senseless act of violence that has resulted in death and injury for many innocent men, women, and children.”
The U.S. embassy said it was in contact with local authorities and offered assistance. Some British security personnel assisted in the response.
“The United States condemns in the strongest terms the despicable terrorist attack on innocent civilians today at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya,” a National Security Council spokesman said in a statement.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who have been killed or injured, including the American citizens who were injured and the staff of our Embassy in Kenya who were tragically affected by this attack. We also commend the courageous response by Kenyan security personnel and first responders, including the Kenyan Red Cross, who stepped forward to help their fellow citizens,” the statement said.
“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. We will continue to stand with the Kenyan people in their efforts to confront terrorism in all its forms, including the threat posed by al-Shabaab. This cowardly act against innocent civilians will not shake our resolve,” the statement said.
Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, blasted “the despicable perpetrators of this cowardly act (who) hoped to intimidate, divide and cause despondency among Kenyans and would like to (create) a closed, fearful and fractured society.”
“Westgate Mall lends itself a serene and safe environment away from the city centre,” the mall’s official website states. The mall has more than 80 stories and restaurants.
The attack began at noon Saturday.
“They had grenades, and it was really, really loud,” one eyewitness told CNN, adding that he noticed tear gas in the corridors as well. “All of us felt like they were close.”
As people texted family and friends outside the mall, word spread that nobody could be trusted – and, even if the good guys could be sorted from the bad guys, the barrage of intermittent gunfire made any escape seem futile at times.
Sara Head, a Washington resident, experienced much of the same horror in the mall’s parking garage, CNN reported. As her car pulled up, she and others heard the rattle of gunfire – prompting them to crawl underneath and sneak behind cars before getting into a stairwell. She had company, including two people bleeding from gunshot wounds.
The military asked local media not to televise anything live because the gunmen are watching the screens in the mall, which is popular with expatriates and the wealthy.
The attackers were in black and wearing facemasks and vests loaded with grenades. They sprayed the unsuspecting crowds with bullets from AK-47s.
At one point mall guards used shopping carts to wheel out wounded children.
“The despicable perpetrators of this cowardly act hope to intimidate, divide and cause despondency amongst Kenyans,” Kenyatta said. “We have overcome terrorist attacks before. In fact we have fought courageously and defeated them within and outside our borders. We will defeat them again.”
Shabab, the al-Qaida-affiliated Somali militant group claiming responsibility for the mall attack, has been implicated in a string of attacks in Kenya in recent years.
The group has been issuing threats against Kenya since the country sent troops into southern Somalia in 2011 and helped drive the militants out of the port city of Kismayo, once a key source of Shabab’s revenue. Kenya still has troops in Somalia operating under the banner of the African Union.
The Shabab media office said the attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall was “retributive justice” for Kenya’s actions in Somalia.
“For long we have waged war against the Kenyans in our land, now it’s time to shift the battleground and take the war to their land,” the group said.
According to a U.S. official, eight to 12 gunmen may have initiated their attack by dropping grenades from a second floor balcony of the Westgate Mall before opening fire.
There were 30 American citizens, including embassy personnel, in the mall at the time of the attack, but they have all been evacuated and are accounted for, the official said. The are no reports of deaths among Americans.
Four Americans have been reported injured and were at a local hospital, the official said.
“The gunmen told Muslims to stand up and leave. They were safe, and non-Muslims would be targeted,” said witness Elijah Kamau who was shopping in the mall.
The Westgate Mall is a destination for Kenya’s elite. It bills itself as the city’s premier mall, boasting that it offers customers a “first world interior” and a “safe and serene environment.” It was opened in 2007.
Bruce Hoffman, who authored a study at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, said in a report three years ago that al-Qaida continues to be a threat because of its networking ability. Hoffman added that attrition is part of al-Qaida’s strategy, which is where diversifying the targets comes into play.
“Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan-born U.S. resident [was] arrested in New York last September and charged with plotting a ‘Mumbai on the Hudson’ suicide terrorist operation. But while al-Qaida is finding new ways to exploit our weaknesses, we are stuck in a pattern of belated responses, rather than anticipating its moves and developing preemptive strategies,” the report said.
No comments:
Post a Comment