At Least Three American Residents And One British Participated In The Attack On A Kenyan Mall

At least three American residents participated in the attacks on the Westgate mall in Nairobi last Saturday, Kenyan authorities informed extra-officially.

According to information published by news network ABC, Amina Mohamed, Minister of Foreign Relations of Kenya, informed in an interview with "NewsHour" that among the members of the Somali Islamic militia Al-Shabab that attacked the Nairobi mall are at least three Americans, aged between 18 and 19, as well as a British woman that "had done this before".

Mohamed's declarations to American network PBS were released on the afternoon of Monday, September 23, a few hours before the Kenyan Army took control of the Westgate mall in Nairobi, although some attackers are still entrenched in some parts of the mall.

Mohamed pointed out in the interview that the Americans that had allegedly participated in the attack are Somali and Arab, and one of them is from Minnesota; however, she did not detailed if they have American citizenship or not.

The same source points out that the spokesperson for the US Department of State, Jen Psaki, has said that the authorities are working to clear up whether any American citizen was involved in the attacks, but offered no further details.

Univisión highlighted that American newspaper The Washington Post had already published testimonials which say that the Islamic extremists were armed with sophisticated machine guns and AK-47 rifles, and that most of the extremists that took over the mall were young and spoke English.

Although Kenyan authorities speak of the release of all hostages, the international media has its doubts, owing to the testimony of freed hostages that said that there were more hostages still in the mall.

According to the latest report from RTV, at 9:30 a.m., local time, the battle between extremists and Kenyan authorities has entered its fourth day, which has generated international uncertainty, especially after the first statements from the Kenyan government which assured that they were in control of the Westgate mall.