{"id":29308,"date":"2019-01-15T21:23:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T21:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29308"},"modified":"2019-01-15T21:23:39","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T21:23:39","slug":"gunmen-storm-nairobi-hotel-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29308","title":{"rendered":"Gunmen storm Nairobi hotel complex"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gunmen have blasted their way into\u00a0<\/span>an upscale hotel and office complex<\/span>\u00a0in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in an attack claimed by Somalia-based armed group al-Shabab.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinnet said on Tuesday that the attack began with an explosion targeting cars followed by a detonation from a suicide bomber.<\/p>\n

“We can now confirm that this criminal activity commenced at about three o’clock [1200 GMT] in a coordinated fashion and began at I&M Bank with an explosion that targeted three vehicles in the parking lot…,” Boinnet said\u00a0in a statement on television.<\/p>\n

The attack on the Dusit hotel complex – which also houses offices and banks – sent people fleeing for their lives.\u00a0More than three hours after the attack began, small groups of workers were still being taken out by officers escorting them to armoured vehicles.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The main door of the hotel was blown open and there was a human arm in the street severed from the shoulder,” said Serge Medic, the Swiss owner of a security company who ran to the scene to help when he heard of the attack from his taxi driver.<\/p>\n

“It is terrible. What I have seen is terrible. I have seen a human as I ran out and there is what looks like minced meat all over,” said a man who ran from the scene. He did not elaborate further.<\/p>\n

Al-Shabab claims responsibility<\/h2>\n

The al-Shabab group, which has been fighting the western-backed government in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it was in\u00a0control of most parts of the building complex.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“Our fighters killed 47 enemies inside the complex. The mujahideen are still in control of most parts of the building complex,” the group’s military operations spokesman,\u00a0Abdiaziz Abu Mus’ab,\u00a0told Al Jazeera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Cars are seen on fire at the scene of the attack [Thomas Mukoya\/Reuters]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

However, no casualty figures have been released by officials.<\/p>\n

Boinnet\u00a0<\/span>earlier said that\u00a0police had secured six out of seven floors\u00a0<\/span>at the Dusit hotel complex that fighters attacked.<\/p>\n

Kenyan television featured appeals for blood from local hospitals and showed police cordoning off the route to ensure vehicles could move quickly. Red Cross ambulances ferried victims away.<\/p>\n

A bomb disposal unit was on the scene.<\/p>\n

The attack came a day after a trial began in the 2013 Westgate mall attack case. At least 67 people were in killed in that attack, which was also carried out by al-Shabab group.<\/p>\n

Kenyan prosecutors say suspects in the Westgate case currently on trial committed a terrorist act and used false documents. The men deny all charges.<\/p>\n

The African Union chief,\u00a0Moussa Faki, condemned the attack and commended Kenyan security forces for their “swift response”.<\/p>\n

A spate of attacks<\/h2>\n

The East African country faced a spate of attacks after it sent its army into Somalia<\/a> in 2011 to fight the al-Qaeda-linked group.<\/p>\n

Kenyan troops, concentrated in south Somalia, originally went into Somalia to try to create a buffer zone along the border. They are now part of an African Union peacekeeping force.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s attack is\u00a0exactly three years<\/a> after al-Shabab overran a Kenyan army base in Somalia, killing dozens of soldiers.<\/p>\n

On April 2, 2015, in one of the most gruesome attacks on Kenyan soil, the armed group killed 148 people<\/a>, most of them students, at a university in Garissa, eastern Kenya.<\/p>\n

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People being evacuated from the scene of the attack [Thomas Mukoya\/Reuters]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gunmen have blasted their way into\u00a0an upscale hotel and office complex\u00a0in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in an attack claimed by Somalia-based armed group al-Shabab. Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinnet said on Tuesday that the attack began with an explosion targeting cars followed by a detonation from a suicide bomber. “We can now confirm that this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}