The Kenyan Defence Force KDF says they are in full control of the Westgate Shopping Mall which was attacked by suspected al Shabab militants from Somalia.

Local reporters say gunfire and loud explosions were heard and seen coming from the building on early hours of Tuesday morning but was not all that clear that the operation of flushing out the militants nearing its end as reported by the Kenyan Defence Force.

Kenya’s Citizen TV reported on Tuesday morning that Kenyan troops had killed six of the remaining attackers inside the mall but did not give further details.

It is unclear how many militants are still in the Westgate building due to the many speculation and unconfirmed reports by the various local media outlets in Kenya.

But an anonymous security official in the Kenyan Defence Force reportedly told the Agence France Press correspondent at the scene that, Kenyan Special Forces are still battling one or two militants holed up on one of the upper floors of the building.

The Kenyan Red Cross has that 68 people had been killed; close to 200 injured and 63 people remain unaccounted for.

The Kenyan Interior Ministry has confirmed that 18 foreigners are among the dead, including six Britons, as well as citizens from France, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, India, Ghana, South Africa and China.

Meanwhile, Kenya’s foreign minister, Amina Mohamed has told the US PBS network that a British woman and two or three US citizens were among the militants that attacked a Nairobi shopping mall

This alleged involvement of a British citizen by the minister has prompted a sharp response from British officials who say they would not be drawn on the identity of the attackers but will continue to investigate the allegation by the minister.

The US authorities also say they are urgently looking into the information given by the Kenyan government that its citizens may have been among the militants in the attack.

But Ms Mohamed appeared to contradict earlier comments from Kenya’s interior minister, who suggested that all the attackers were men.

President Barack Obama called the attack a terrible outrage and said the US was providing all the co-operation it could to Kenya.

Thousands of Kenyans have been responding to appeals for blood donations in hospital in and clinics in the capital Nairobi.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is due to make a nationwide broadcast to give further details about the exact progress about the incident.

Al Shabab said they carried out the attack in response to Kenya’s military operations in Somalia. There are about 4,000 Kenyan troops in the southern part of Somalia, where they have been fighting the militants since 2011.

Al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda and has repeatedly, threatened attacks on Kenyan soil if Kenya did not pull its troops out of Somalia in what they described as Kenya’s violation of Somalia’s territorial integrity.

Issaka Adams / NationalTurk Africa News

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