Westgate starts recovery journey as noose tightens on terrorists

Rebuilding of the Westgate Mall begins in earnest on Monday, five months after 67 people were killed and 200 injured in the worst terrorist attack since 1998.

This coincides with the release of an important report on the recovery not just of businesses but also the people affected by the attack.

Even as the Committee on the Rapid Restoration of Westgate makes public its report, another one by the joint House Administration; National Security and Defence and Foreign Relations committees could also come up for debate this week.

A judicial commission of inquiry promised by President Kenyatta seems to have been shelved in preference for the parliamentary investigation.

The 74-page report by MPs answers some of the questions about the terror attack, one of the worst in Kenya’s history, but steers clear of the security politics and failures surrounding the attack and the many disturbing inconsistencies around the military rescue operation.

Investigations by the Daily Nation reveal that five months after the attack, one of the biggest criminal investigations in Kenyan history — bringing together intelligence, scientific and police agencies from numerous countries — is ongoing. It’s intention is to find the perpetrators, not to pinpoint the security lapses which made the attack possible.

Some progress has been made in this regard: Parliament has now identified the attackers as Mohamed Abdi Noor from Somalia, Mohammed Hassan Dhulhulow, also known as Abu Baraa Al Sudani, a Norwegian of Somali origin, Yahye Osman Ahmed, also known as Arab, a Somali of Arab origin and Ahmed Hassan Abukar, a Somali.

What was not clear was the fate of the attackers. The Kenya Defence Forces have in the past said that all were killed at Westgate and their bodies handed over to the Federal Bureau of Investigations for further forensic investigations to confirm their identities.

The FBI, however, refused to confirm to the Daily Nation whether investigations had conclusively identified the dead persons as the suspected attackers. One State Department official appeared to suggest that the FBI was given tissue samples, not whole bodies as claimed by Kenya authorities. This would raise questions about the whereabouts of the bodies of the attackers.

MPs, in preparing their report, appeared to have taken a leap of faith with a categorical conclusion that the attackers were killed and their bodies found.

FOUR TERRORISTS
“All the four terrorists were killed during confrontation with the security forces. Their body parts, weapons and personal effects were recovered from the scene of attack. Forensic investigations confirm that the recovered body parts and unmarked weapons and ammunition belonged to the terrorists,” the parliamentary report says.

Yesterday, a member of the restoration team said they had recommended that the mall be partially rebuilt before opening.

“The Nakumatt supermarket upper parking bay, which was heavily damaged, will undergo construction from scratch while other sections will only be refurbished before businesses are allowed back,” he said.

The building was apparently damaged, and whole sections collapsed, as the military confronted the attackers, in a battle said to have lasted four days. Leaked CCTV footage showed four attackers armed with AK 47 rifles and carrying ammunition pouches.

Most parts of the building, the restoration committee found out, were stable and had only been peppered with bullet holes and required only repairs, according to the report.

The 16-member committee, which was chaired by Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero, will submit the report to Commerce and Tourism Secretary Phyllis Kandie, today.

The committee’s secretary, Mr David Muigua, said the team had considered all the views given by the public.

He said business at the mall will be back soon.

“I cannot tell the exact date that the mall will be opened. I can only say the technical details in the report will have those time lines,” he said.

A senior US official has denied reports that the FBI was given four bodies believed to be of terrorists killed in the Westgate mall terror attack insisting only body parts were given to the US investigations agency.

On February 7, Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) chief Julius Karangi said the FBI had bodies of four people believed to be the Westgate attackers but refused to say where the bodies are kept.

Speaking at a public forum to review the way the September 21 terror attack was handled, Gen Karangi said there were only four terrorists and they were killed during the rescue operation.

“A media house was too happy to report that these fellows escaped that Saturday through a tunnel. Hear it from me, they were killed on Monday morning,” he said.

Last week, the US government confirmed it was analysing body parts believed to be of terrorists who attacked the mall.

A State Department official said FBI agents are conducting forensic analysis at “the request of the Kenya government”.

FORENSIC ANALYSIS

The official said the FBl were “providing a range of assistance to the Kenyan government to support the investigation of the Westgate attack.”

And although the FBI had earlier confirmed conducting forensic analysis on the samples given to them by Kenya, the agency declined to divulge details of their results.

An official from FBI’s National Press Office, Ms Denise Ballew, told the Daily Nation they had no comment on the identities of the terrorists. They also had no comment on whether FBI was given bodies of the four suspected terrorists or tissue samples.

In their report, MPs have pointed out that there was poor coordination during the changeover of command from the GSU’s Recce Company. The report says before KDF took over the rescue operation, GSU had contained the terrorists in one corner of the mall.

One-time Commandant of Kenya’s National Defence College, Lieutenant-General (rtd) Humphrey Njoroge, the only voice from the security establishment to authoritatively review the Westgate operation, said he believed the military lost the plot at Westgate.

In an article published by Saturday Nation immediately after the terror attack, Lt-Gen Njoroge, cited a broken command structure, poor screening of people fleeing the mall and outright incompetence, which may have handed the attackers the upper hand.

Lt-Gen Njoroge, an alumnus of the US Army War College, had in the 1980s recommended in an academic paper, that the police and the military be trained to handle security situations in urban areas.

“The Army must also be trained to be able to live and fight under urban conditions to avoid undue harassment of children, women and the aged and the looting, which comes about when an inexperienced army is exposed to these things,” he had recommended.

It has to be noted that the KDF operation at Westgate was led by Kenya’s elite Special Forces.

These are military units trained to perform unconventional high-risk missions such as counter-terrorism operations that may at times include hostage rescue.

In the Westgate case, the operation was led by paratroopers from the Special Forces 20 Parachute Battalion based in Gilgil.

It is one of the oldest units of KDF and paratroopers are the mainstay of Special Forces because they can be dropped almost anywhere, including deep behind enemy lines to perform risky missions such as sabotage, demolitions and infiltrating the enemy.

All this suggests that the rescue operation went the way it did because of the way the operation was put together and led.
Dr Nyagudi Musandu, a security consultant, says the military could have performed better with more specialised equipment, also training in fighting indoors.

“I feel that some of the KDF soldiers on the first night got close enough to shoot the terrorists dead, but they did not and they were killed instead,” he said.

Dr Musandu said he believed it was right to deploy the military at Westgate to contain the risk of the fighting spilling over to neighbouring areas.

CCTV FOOTAGE

“If I was in charge of the operation, I would have micro-managed it to the last degree. What I can tell you for sure is that the many rooms and design of the Westgate complex necessitated the use of many soldiers. The problem is that their commanders did not micro-manage them once they were in the building,” he said.

The rescue team had access to live CCTV feed and probably could see every point of the mall. During the operation top military officers were on the ground at Westgate.

Dr Musandu observes the lessons Kenyans should learn from the Westgate terror attack is that Al-Qaeda and its allies are still present and active in Kenya.

Contacted yesterday on the progress of  investigations by FBI, the progress of the Nairobi Metropolitan Command and whether there had been an internal reviews of the Westgate operation, military spokesman, Bogita Ongeri said he could not comment immediately but promised to do so later.