PHOTOS: VIEWER DISCRETION. MORE PHOTOS FROM THE ATTACK BY EXTREMISTS ON A MALL IN KENYA

 

The Kenyan shopping mall where Islamic terrorists are holding shoppers hostage is on fire as and a fierce gun battle is underway as the special forces try to bring an end to the three day siege.

Witnesses say they have heard four large explosions at the Westgate Shopping Centre in Nairobi and it is feared gunman inside may blown themselves up in a suicide bomb attack.

Security forces say they have freed some but not all of the hostages.

The Westgate Shopping Centre is on fire and a fierce gun battle is underway as Kenyan special forces try to end the three day siege that has killed at least 69 people

Witnesses have reported hearing rapid gun fire at the shopping mall and Kenyan soldiers have been seen moving towards Westgate

A paramedic runs for cover outside the mall in Nairobi after a large explosion was followed by sustained shooting

Police chief David Kimaiyo said in a message on Twitter on the third day of the standoff: ‘Thumbs up to our multi-agency team, we have just managed to rescue some hostages. We’re increasingly gaining advantage of the attackers.’
Thick clouds of dense black smoke billowed from the complex after a series of loud explosions and heavy gunfire.
The area around the mall was teeming with Kenyan soldiers and armoured personnel carriers, as emergency workers and reporters were told to take cover.

Ambulances were also seen accelerating towards the scene as aircraft flew overhead.
A Kenyan special forces officer said troops had moved in to end the siege with force.
‘I saw them only once, I could not see them much,” he said. “It was hide-and-seek, hide-and-seek, hide-and-seek. In the end we had to use full force, we had to finish with these guys.’

This morning it emerged that a British man had lost his wife and daughter in the massacre while a prize winning architect, who had joint British and Australian nationality was also among the dead.

The Foreign Office confirmed today that four Britons have now been killed in the atrocity.

Ross Langdon, 33,  was killed alongside his heavily pregnant Dutch partner Elif Yavuz. The malaria specialist was just two weeks away from giving birth.

Kenyan troops have moved in to end the siege but spokesman for terror group Al Shabaab Ali Mohamud Rage said in a statement posted on an Islamist website that those held inside will ‘bear the brunt of any force’ used by soldiers against the militants.

culled from Daily Post