New Kenya mall attack footage shows brutality, horror of assault
Disturbing new surveillance footage
recorded amid the deadly siege on a
Kenyan mall last month offers a gut-
wrenching glimpse into the utter chaos
and carnage of the attack, which left
67 people dead and nearly 200 others
injured over four days of bloodshed.
The devastating footage from inside
the Westgate mall in Nairobi on Sept.
21 shows dozens of unsuspecting
patrons, some of them children,
strolling in a foyer as a small team of al
Qaeda-linked Somali terrorists storm
the complex, unleashing a hail of
bullets and sending shoppers
frantically fleeing in all directions.
The footage obtained by NBC News
then jumps forward in time, showing
one of the attackers aiming an
automatic rifle at an unidentified man
laying prostrate on the tile floor in the
now-empty foyer. The gunman fires
point blank, striking the man in the
back.
Moments later, the wounded man can
be seen flailing in a thick puddle of his
own blood, struggling to stand. But he
is apparently too injured to pick
himself up, and collapses on his hands.
At an unspecified later time, one of the
gunmen returns to the blood-soaked
man — now laying on his back, his legs
splayed haphazardly — and fires at
him multiple times at close range.
Later, two gunmen can be seen
stalking the cleared halls. The glinting
tile floors and gleaming merchandise
display cases are a sickening remainder
of the pleasant day of shopping that
they brutally interrupted. Then they
aim their weapons at an unseen target.
Slideshow: Gunmen attack mall
in Kenya
Gunmen stormed a crowded shopping
frequented by Westerners in a brazen
attack
Launch slideshow
The footage also shows panic-stricken
shoppers running down a hallway,
presumably scrambling to flee the
attackers. Amid the mass hysteria, one
man can be seen tripping over another
man, which sends him flying across the
tile floor. He then does a military crawl
to a kiosk, presumably to take cover
from the gunmen's furious torrent of
bullets.
And in another sequence, a line of
hostages — including two children and
their mother, who appears to push an
injured third child in a shopping cart
— proceed down a market aisle, with a
gunman on their tail.
A teenage looking girl follows, her
sweatshirt soaked with blood, holding
her hands in the air as the gunman
points the way ahead.
Over the course of the siege, some of
the gunmen appear nonchalant. At one
point in the footage, the terrorists sit
in what appears to be a stock
warehouse, taking turns praying. And
at another point, one of the gunman
can be seen using a cellphone.
The siege, which the Islamic terrorist
group al-Shabab has claimed
responsibility for, lasted until Sept. 24.
