Upscale Mall Becomes War Zone in Kenya Terror Attack

[jbg]

The beat goes on. This is the latest series in a series of massacres. Yes, the usual suspects are involved. Are the Islamists trying to make parodies of themselves?

Somali Islamists, from the group "Shabab" or something link that, seem to be involved. First they drove out "Doctors Without Borders. Now, they turn a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya into a charnel house (link to article).

Upscale Mall Becomes War Zone in Kenya Terror Attack

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and NICHOLAS KULISH

NAIROBI, Kenya — Masked gunmen stormed into a fancy, crowded mall in Nairobi on Saturday and shot dead at least 39 people in one of the most chilling terrorist attacks in East Africa since Al Qaeda blew up two American Embassies in 1998.

Parents threw their bodies over their children, people climbed into ventilation shafts to save themselves, and shoppers huddled behind the plastic mannequins of designer clothing stores as two squads of gunmen moved through the mall shooting shoppers in the head.

*******************

Several witnesses said the attackers shouted for Muslims to run away while they hunted down other shoppers. The mall, one of Nairobi’s most luxurious, with gleaming escalators and some of the most expensive shops in town, is also popular with expatriates. It has served as the place for a power lunch, to catch a movie, to bring children for ice cream. On Saturday, the State Department said there were reports of injured American citizens but declined to elaborate, citing privacy considerations.


Several Western intelligence officials said they suspected that the attack was carried out by the Shabab, an Islamist militant group based in Somalia that has carried out suicide attacks and beheadings inside Somalia and threatened Kenyan malls before. A confidential United Nations report on Saturday described the attack as “a complex, two-prolonged assault” with two squads of gunmen dashing into the mall from different floors at the same time and opening fire immediately.

(snip)

This follows a particularly brutal stretch of news from that part of the world.

1. The slaughters, including poison gas attacks, in Syria;
2. The chaos and butchery in Egypt; and
3. The renewal of chaos and slaughter in Iraq.

Who is now going to blame the West, Israel, the U.S. or "blowback"? These shoppers have nothing to do with any oppressors, and never hurt anyone.

Edited September 22, 2013 by jbg

[eyeball]

I attribute it to the geopolitical diddling of the usual suspects, power and wealth. The vast vast majority of the human race is always innocent in the face of these two.

It's similar to blowback but more like a reaction. I only expect more of it myself, a lot more.

Edited September 22, 2013 by eyeball

[Guest American Woman]

Everyone outside of the rich and powerful is blameless, is that it? No one else is responsible for their own actions, regardless of how horrible? It's always someone else's fault? Unbelievable.

[Shady]

I attribute it to the geopolitical diddling of the usual suspects, power and wealth. The vast vast majority of the human race is always innocent in the face of these two.

It's similar to blowback but more like a reaction. I only expect more of it myself, a lot more.

How absurd. Typical though. Terrorists kill innocent people at a mall in Kenya, and you blame the west. Why don't you move already if you don't like us that much? Seriously. Get the hell out. Move to one of the many countries with murderous dictators that you defend on a regular basis. I'm sure you'll have a grand time.

[dre]

Who is now going to blame the West, Israel, the U.S. or "blowback"? These shoppers have nothing to do with any oppressors, and never hurt anyone.

Al Shabab is part of the Islamic Courts Union that chased US backed warlords/terrorists out of Mogadishu in 2006. Troops from Etheopia and Kenya have launched an offensive over the last few years and have been have been attacking rebel strongholds.

This is another case where foreign powers are trying to decide the outcome of a civil war, picking one group of nuts against the other. "Blowback" describes it pretty well.

[jbg]

How absurd. Typical though. Terrorists kill innocent people at a mall in Kenya, and you blame the west. Why don't you move already if you don't like us that much? Seriously. Get the hell out. Move to one of the many countries with murderous dictators that you defend on a regular basis. I'm sure you'll have a grand time.

Sice an Israeli business was involved, maybe the IDF should attack a mall in Jordan.

[jbg]

Al Shabab is part of the Islamic Courts Union that chased US backed warlords/terrorists out of Mogadishu in 2006. Troops from Etheopia and Kenya have launched an offensive over the last few years and have been have been attacking rebel strongholds.

This is another case where foreign powers are trying to decide the outcome of a civil war, picking one group of nuts against the other. "Blowback" describes it pretty well.

I guess that makes perfect sense; Western troops intervene in a civil war, and a shopping mall in a non-Western country is the subject of a massacre. </sarcasm>

[dre]

I guess that makes perfect sense; Western troops intervene in a civil war, and a shopping mall in a non-Western country is the subject of a massacre

No, genius. KENYA AND ETHOPIAN troops intervened in a civil war. Not western troops. The attacks are retribution for Kenyan troops in Somalia.

Why dont you get yourself some remedial reading lessons?

Edited September 23, 2013 by dre

[dre]

Sice an Israeli business was involved, maybe the IDF should attack a mall in Jordan.

Since words and sentences are involved... Maybe you should learn to read?

[jbg]

No, genius. KENYA AND ETHOPIAN troops intervened in a civil war. Not western troops. The attacks are retribution for Kenyan troops in Somalia.

Why dont you get yourself some remedial reading lessons?

Since words and sentences are involved... Maybe you should learn to read?

Both points are a lot of nit-picking.

The Shabab massacred people who have done nothing wrong.

[Argus]

Al Shabab is part of the Islamic Courts Union that chased US backed warlords/terrorists out of Mogadishu in 2006. Troops from Etheopia and Kenya have launched an offensive over the last few years and have been have been attacking rebel strongholds.

This is another case where foreign powers are trying to decide the outcome of a civil war, picking one group of nuts against the other. "Blowback" describes it pretty well.

Kenya really only became involved in Somalia after elements of Al Shabab began raiding across the Kenyan border, hitting resorts, kidnapping westerners and dragging them back to Somolia for ransom. So maybe you should consider the Kenyan attacks on Al Shabab as the blowback, eh?

BTW, your sympathy for them as compared to the "US backed warlords/terrorists" is, I assume, simply a knee-jerk hatred of the US as opposed to the slightest knowledge about this group's brutal and murderous behaviour against people within Somalia. Basically, they feel bound by no laws but "Allah" and of course, they get to decide what Allah wants or what might offend Allah. So basically, murder and rape are good, but a woman who gets pregnant through being raped must be buried in the dirt and stoned to death.

[GostHacked]

No, genius. KENYA AND ETHOPIAN troops intervened in a civil war. Not western troops. The attacks are retribution for Kenyan troops in Somalia.

Why dont you get yourself some remedial reading lessons?

Reading comprehension is severely lacking these days. So, either blatant trolls, or blatantly ignorant.

[DogOnPorch]

No, genius. KENYA AND ETHOPIAN troops intervened in a civil war. Not western troops. The attacks are retribution for Kenyan troops in Somalia.

Why dont you get yourself some remedial reading lessons?

That certainly explains the presence of Canadian and American Muslims among the terrorists. Right?

[GostHacked]

That certainly explains the presence of Canadian and American Muslims among the terrorists. Right?

What exactly are you trying to say here?

Also, the stuff in Iraq is not new, it has been ongoing for the past couple years. Deadly car bombings weekly are occurring there, I've mentioned it many times before.

[Argus]

What exactly are you trying to say here

His point is fairly obvious. Why would Americans, British, and other foreigners join in on a murderous attack on a shopping mall simply because the Kenyan government had retaliated against bandits raiding across its borders? What did they care? Of course, all of them were from the religion of peace, but I'm sure that was just a coincidence.

[eyeball]

Why would Americans, British, and other foreigners join in on a murderous attack...

Moral dissonance - people see their governments preaching liberty and freedom on one hand while joining with murderous dictatorships on the other...

Moral dissonance is like a double edged sword I guess - it can act like a sense that warns us that something is wrong but it can also drive you crazy. Religious people are probably more prone to problems with it because they're often also struggling with cognitive dissonance as well.

[Argus]

Moral dissonance - people see their governments preaching liberty and freedom on one hand while joining with murderous dictatorships on the other...

Get back to me when they lend those dictatorships soldiers to shoot down people in shopping malls.

[eyeball]

On the other hand some people's sense of moral dissonance is so blunted as to be almost nonexistent.

[DogOnPorch]

On the other hand some people's sense of moral dissonance is so blunted as to be almost nonexistent.

She worked in immigration. Dead. He was wounded and now must go on w/o her.

She was very pregnant...dead. He got to watch her die before dying of gunshot wounds himself.

Speaking of moral dissonance.

[-TSS-]

The details are still very ambiguous but some reports tell that one of the terrorists is from Finland. If that really turns out to be true I sincerely hope that the families of the victims sue the Finnish government and demand hefty compensations. After all, if he is from Finland he has probably been enjoying the Finnish social security system thus enabling him to send money to al-shabaab and what's worse, as we still have conscription he may have carried out military service. So the Finns have given him military training too. In other words the Finnish government has been sponsoring international terrorism. If the reports of one terrorist's "Finnishness" turn out to be true.

If so, anyone travelling in the world on a Finnish passport should be treated with utmost suspicion, double-checked and searched and caused all possible delays. I mean anyone, not just those who don't look Finnish but anyone with a Finnish passport.

Only consequences such as those could open the eyes of the people who keep on voting for these politicians who yearn for more multiculturalism.

[Guest American Woman]

That certainly explains the presence of Canadian and American Muslims among the terrorists. Right?

Some here have been saying that they are recruiting people in our countries too, but wasn't that dismissed as being alarmist, or some such thing?

[Guest American Woman]

The details are still very ambiguous but some reports tell that one of the terrorists is from Finland. If that really turns out to be true I sincerely hope that the families of the victims sue the Finnish government and demand hefty compensations. After all, if he is from Finland he has probably been enjoying the Finnish social security system thus enabling him to send money to al-shabaab and what's worse, as we still have conscription he may have carried out military service. So the Finns have given him military training too. In other words the Finnish government has been sponsoring international terrorism. If the reports of one terrorist's "Finnishness" turn out to be true.

Are you being facetious?

[-TSS-]

Are you being facetious?

Tongue in cheek, sure, but partly serious. If we keep on importing these people who are incompatible with living in the western world it is no use crying when the inevitable consequences become for everyone to be seen.

[Guest American Woman]

Tongue in cheek, sure, but partly serious. If we keep on importing these people who are incompatible with living in the western world it is no use crying when the inevitable consequences become for everyone to be seen.

I'm not sure how the government is supposed to know who is, and who isn't, "incompatible with living in the western world." Or are you suggesting that the government cut off all immigration from, say, Somalia? If so, what other countries do you think should be denied immigration?

[GostHacked]

His point is fairly obvious. Why would Americans, British, and other foreigners join in on a murderous attack on a shopping mall simply because the Kenyan government had retaliated against bandits raiding across its borders? What did they care? Of course, all of them were from the religion of peace, but I'm sure that was just a coincidence.

The reply DoP made was an attempt to make an argument out of something dre never said.