The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks (36 page)

The news media reported that the gas companies had chosen not to deploy armed guards. The workers were no match for the terrorists operating in the dark who brought in mortars, grenade launchers, and 50-caliber machine guns.

The news media reported that several hostages used cell phones to video the siege. They captured executions of hostages, including one via bodybomb. Another showed a terrorist with a car battery between his thighs, two wires in his hands, and wearing an explosive belt, ready to set it off if a rescue was attempted. One video showed the terrorist leader wearing a green military uniform with an explosives belt and carrying a Kalashnikov.

A terrorist spokesman announced on a Mauritanian news site that more attacks within Algeria were coming. The British and American governments publicly vowed to track down the perpetrators. As of late 2013, the search continues.

Overview:
By summer 2013, the West and African Union thought it had al-Shabaab on the run. African Union troops overran al-Shabaab's redoubts in Kismaayo and Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. Surviving members faced major schisms. Four senior commanders, including two cofounders, were assassinated in June 2013. Its spiritual guide, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, fled but was captured and imprisoned in Mogadishu. A very public spat with its prominent American spokesman, Omar Hammami, ended with his assassination by loyalists of Muktar Abdirahman Godane on September 12, 2013. Godane's 2012 swearing of allegiance
to al Qaeda's central leadership put it under great pressure to reestablish its credentials as a leader in the jihadi movement. Al-Shabaab's claim to jihadi leadership was tenuous despite the occasional attack beyond Somalia's borders on African Union troop contributors Kenya and Uganda. Bomb-and-run attacks on Kenyan churches and bus stops paled in comparison to a days-long barricade-and-hostage shootout that killed scores of Kenyans and foreigners and hijacked the world's headlines at the same time the UN General Assembly was hosting its annual General Debate by heads of state.

Incident:
At noon, on September 21, 2013, a multinational team of more than a dozen al-Shabaab terrorists threw grenades and fired at two entrances to the upscale, 80-shop, 6-year-old Westgate Mall in Nairobi's affluent Westlands district. The terrorist team shot at least one man inside his car and hit two more pedestrians before entering the mall. At least three security officers were hospitalized following the initial attack. The gunmen then seized dozens of hostages, but told Muslims to leave as they were targeting non-Muslims. Some hostages were held for four days until a two-day government rescue operation ended the siege. The terrorists killed at least 62 people and wounded 175 people, including foreigners. Authorities had issued a warning to the expatriate community to avoid the mall after receiving a threat against it. Al-Shabaab said the attack was in revenge for Kenyan participation in the African Union attacks against al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Following the initial attack, police surrounded the mall and conducted an on-and-off gun battle with the terrorists, who still held dozens of hostages. An Army helicopter and two armed vehicles joined police efforts. At least one terrorist died during the initial confrontation. Another was hospitalized under police custody; he later died.

Initial reports said some terrorists wore masks or burkas to hide their identities. Twitter postings from al-Shabaab indicated that all of the terrorists were males, although some reports included the presence of a white English-speaking British woman among the attackers. Police believed she was Samantha Lewthwaite (aka Natalie Faye Webb), 29, known as the “white widow” of suicide bomber Germaine Lindsey, who died in the July 7, 2005, attack on London's transportation system. Kenyan authorities wanted Buckinghamshire-born Lewthwaite for financing al-Shabaab and al Qaeda. Surviving shoppers said she spurred terrorists to more killing, giving orders in English that were translated into Swahili.

Early in the siege, Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta vowed, “We shall hunt down the perpetrators wherever they run to. We shall get them, and we shall punish them for this heinous crime.” He later added, “They shall not get away with their despicable, beastly acts. Like the cowardly perpetrators now cornered in the building, we will punish the masterminds swiftly and indeed very painfully.”

At least 1,000 people escaped from the mall and were allowed to depart after authorities checked for weapons. Some, including several wounded children, were pulled out on shopping carts. Several shoppers reported the smell of tear gas. Some shoppers heard gunfire inside the mall and ran outside, but heard shots there, too, so they ran back inside. Several hid in restrooms and stairwells. At least one woman climbed through an air vent to safety. Uche Kaigwa-Okoye hid with 20 others for five hours in a women's restroom before fleeing. Manish Turohit, 18, who hid in a parking garage for two hours, reported that the gunmen were armed with AK-47s and wore vests with hand grenades attached. Kamal Kaur, a journalist for Radio Africa, said a bullet missed her son, bounced off a wall, and killed a nearby child. The terrorists went from store to store asking questions of the shoppers before shooting and throwing grenades. Three area hospitals treated more than 293 people and reported wounded ranging in age from 2 to 78.

The dead included many Kenyans and at least 18 foreigners. President Kenyatta lost his nephew Mbugua Mwangi and his nephew's fiancée Rosemary Wahito, who were at the mall shopping for wedding rings. Ruhila Adatia-Sood, 31, journalist and popular Kenya media personality, was killed while hosting a children's cooking competition at the mall. She was six months pregnant. Others killed included U.K. businessman Louis Bawa's wife and 8-year-old daughter; Ross Langdon, 33, award-winning London-based Australian architect, and his partner Elif Yavus, 33, malaria specialist who was working for the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation and who was about to give birth in two weeks; Canadian diplomat Annemarie Desloges, 29, liaison officer to Canada's High Commission to Kenya, her husband Robert Munk was among those injured; and Kofi Awoonor, 78, Ghanaian poet and professor who had served as ambassador to Brazil, Cuba, and the United Nations, his son was among those injured.

The terrorists said via Twitter posts that they would not negotiate with the government because the group was retaliating “for the lives of innocent Muslims” killed by Kenyan forces leading an African Union offensive against al-Shabaab that began in 2011. At one time or another, the attackers stated:

• “We'll not negotiate with the Kenyan government as long as its forces are invading our country, so reap the bitter fruits of your harvest.”
  
• “When justice is denied, it must be enforced. Kenyans were relatively safe in their cities before they invaded us & killed Muslims #Westgate.”
  
• “The Mujahideen are still strong inside #Westgate Mall and still holding their ground. All praise is due to Allah!”
  
• “[The operation was] far greater than how the Kenyans perceive it.”
  
• “There are countless number of dead bodies still scattered inside the mall, and the mujahideen are still holding their ground.”
  
• “[The hostages are] still alive looking quite disconcerted but, nevertheless, alive.”
  
• “You [the government] could have avoided all this and lived your lives with relative safety. Remove your forces from our country and peace will come.”
  

Twitter closed down five al-Shabaab accounts, but a sixth popped up. Al-Shabaab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage later said, “We will make them suffer what we suffer in southern Somalia, we are giving a warning to the Kenyan government and to all those who support it. . . . If not, know that this is just a taste of what we will do . . . you should expect black days.”

The government countered that it was in control and simply conducting mopping-up operations against the terrorists.

The terrorist group posted the names of nine attackers, including three Americans, two Somalis, and one each from Canada, Finland, Kenya, and the United Kingdom. Kenyan authorities said the Americans were of Somali extraction, aged 18 or 19. Al-Shabaab's media office later told
Reuters,
“Those who describe the attackers as Americans and British are people who do not know what is going on in Westgate building.” Investigators were looking into possible connections of the terrorists with the Somali refugee community in the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi and Somali diaspora in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Large explosions rocked the mall the second day of the siege. Some shoppers trapped in the mall managed to leave after the initial mass escape. They included Cecile Ndwiga, who hid under a car in the basement parking garage. U.S. law enforcement, military, and civilian personnel and Israeli Special Forces operatives arrived to assist Kenyan colleagues during the crisis. Four mall restaurants were Israeli owned.

Kenya launched what it deemed a “major” rescue operation on September 22, 2013, freeing several hostages—many suffering from dehydration—to the sound of loud explosions and gunfire. Kenya's National Disaster Operation Centre tweeted, “This will end tonight. Our forces will prevail. Kenyans are standing firm against aggression, and we will win.” Nine bodies were recovered. On September 23, 2013, four more explosions were heard at the mall during gun battles in which 3 terrorists were killed and 10 arrested; 11 Kenyan soldiers were wounded. Smoke billowed from the mall's main department and grocery store, Nakumatt.

Al-Shabaab spokesman Rage posted an Internet audio file saying that the hostage-takers had been ordered to “take punitive action against the hostages” in the event of a rescue operation. The BBC in Somalia interviewed an Abu Ammar, who claimed credit for organizing the attack.

On September 24, 2013, the government began its final push. An explosion went off at 6:30
A.M
., and two more at noon. Three floors of the four-story mall collapsed, trapping people.

At the end of the siege, the government said 61 civilians, 6 members of the security forces, and 5 terrorists—possibly including Lewthwaite— died during the four days. Eleven terrorists were detained. Another 65 people were reported missing. It was unclear whether any terrorists managed to escape by changing clothes and mingling with the fleeing hostages. Police said they were defusing booby traps. Local police identified one of the dead terrorists as Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow, 23, a Norwegian citizen of Somali extraction.

On September 26, 2013, Interpol issued a “Red Notice”—an internationally wanted persons alert—for Lewthwaite (alias Sherafiya). Kenya wanted her on charges of being in possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit a felony in December 2011. As of late 2013, she remained at large.

The
Associated Press
reported that on October 5, 2013, U.S. Navy SEALs conducted an operation in Barawe, southern Somalia, but were unable to locate the suspect in the Westgate case.

On November 4, 2013, Kenyan authorities charged four Somali men— Mohamed Ahmed Abdi, Liban Abdullah Omar, Hussein Hassan Mustafah, and Adan Dheq—and ordered them imprisoned until a court hearing. They pleaded not guilty to charges that included illegally harboring a fugitive.

The criteria for inclusion in the
Worst 50
can easily be argued. Some multicasualty events, such as the late 1970s arson against an Iranian theater that killed 347 people, did not make the list because they are virtually unknown outside the host country. Other campaigns—two series of 100 letter bombs mailed at the same time, but most of which were intercepted; the October 2001 anthrax attacks; the Unabomber bombings; the Hizballah kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut; and similar serial events—were not included because no single event or small group of events were lethal or newsworthy enough in their own right.

These types of events, however, are still worth mention. Some broke new ground in the terrorist repertoire, introducing a new type of attack, an innovation in the use of an old tactic, an uptick in lethality, or the crossing of a heretofore silently agreed upon barrier against attacking a specific class of target.

Overview:
The Elbrick kidnapping established for Latin American terrorists a model for getting leverage against the United States and the local government—a low-risk hostage-taking of a prominent American (usually an ambassador, military figure, or corporate executive) to obtain multimillion dollar ransoms; release of scores, if not hundreds, of political prisoners; publication of the group's manifesto to audiences in the millions; and publicity in general for the organization. The kidnapping was comparatively clean, meaning with little bloodshed, and the hostage was treated well throughout his captivity. The safe house–negotiation template, with an exit strategy for the kidnappers as part of their calculus,
stood for several years as the standard for Latin American and Western European leftist revolutionary groups.

Incident:
On September 4, 1969, Charles Burke Elbrick, U.S. ambassador to Brazil and former deputy assistant secretary of state for European Affairs, was kidnapped from his car on his way to the embassy following lunch at home. Four armed members of the Revolutionary Movement of October 8 (MR-8) and the National Liberation Action blocked the path of his vehicle with their cars on a Rio de Janeiro street. The group left a ransom note demanding the release of 15 unidentified political prisoners who were to be flown to Chile, Mexico, or Algeria and the publication of a three-page manifesto. Elbrick's chauffeur, an embassy employee for four years, was left behind unharmed. Elbrick suffered a scalp-type wound on his right forehead where he was hit by the butt of a .38 caliber revolver. The group warned that if their demands were not carried out within 48 hours, they would be “forced to carry out revolutionary justice” by killing Elbrick. An hour after his capture, he was questioned about the activities, membership, and contacts of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Brazil by two men who the ambassador believed were outside communists, “unlike the kidnappers themselves who did not claim to be communists.”