Gunmen who massacred at least 67 people in Kenya?s Westgate mall in September were special suicide commandos, Somalia?s Shebab insurgents said Tuesday, rubbishing reports the men had tried to escape.
Members of a ?martyrdom brigade?, the gunmen were ?brothers who have volunteered to enter into enemy ranks and cause havoc before being killed by the enemy,? the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab said in the latest issue of their online magazine.
While not specifically saying they had died, the Shebab dismissed initial reports by Kenya?s army chief, Julius Karangi, that the men had attempted to flee.
?Karangi even had the audacity to claim that the martyrdom-seeking mujahedeen were seeking to abscond and escape from the mall,? read the magazine.
The magazine ? a special edition released on Tuesday via extremist websites and dedicated to the four-day Westgate siege ? was published a day after four men appeared in a Nairobi court charged with ?supporting a terrorist group? over the attack.
Slickly produced and written in both English and East Africa?s Swahili language, the magazine is crammed with gruesome photographs of the attack, and gloating messages lauding the success of the massacre.
?Westgate was not a fight, it was a message,? the magazine read, quoting Shebab spokesman Ali Mohamed Rage. ?The real fight is on the way.?
Source: AFP
