Kenya’s military spokesman has confirmed the names of the four attackers implicated in the four-day-long siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, which killed more than 60 people last month.
Major Emmanuel Chirchir confirmed that the attackers are Abu Baara al-Sudani, Omar Nabhan, Khattab al-Kene and Umayr.
He told The Associated Press: “I confirm those are the names of the terrorists”.
Little is known about their identity.
Matt Bryden, the former head of the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia, said via email that al-Kene and Umayr are known members of al-Hijra, a Kenyan extremist group affiliated with al-Shabab.
He added that Nabhan may be a relative of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was the most-wanted al Qaeda operative in the region until he was killed in a 2009 strike led by Navy Seals.
The identities of the men came as a private television station in Nairobi obtained and broadcast CCTV footage from the Nairobi mall.
The footage shows no more than four attackers. They are seen calmly walking through a storeroom inside the complex, holding machine guns. One of the men’s trouser legs appears to be stained with blood, though he is not limping, and it is unclear if the blood is his, or that of his victims.
The footage contradicts earlier government statements which indicated that between 10 to 15 attackers were involved in the September 21st attack. Terrified shoppers hid behind mannequins, inside cardboard boxes, in storage rooms, in ventilation shafts and in the parking lot underneath parked cars, many hiding for hours before help arrived.
Al-Shabab, al Qaeda’s affiliate in neighboring Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for Kenya’s military intervention in Somalia in 2011 that was aimed at flushing out the extremists.
AP