9 arrested in Kenya hotel attack

Nine people have been arrested in Kenya following an attack on a luxury hotel compound in the capital Nairobi that left at least 21 dead.

All five militants who stormed the DusitD2 hotel and business complex on Tuesday have been killed, officials said, and a major hunt was under way to find those who helped organise it, the BBC reported.

Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabab has said it was behind the attack.

Kenya's Red Cross said everyone who was missing has now been accounted for.

The Kenyan media reported that the wife of one of the suspected attackers, Ali Salim Gichunge, was arrested in Kiambu county, just north of Nairobi.

The police also said that they had identified Gichunge, also known as Farouk, through the car used in the attack.

Neighbours told The Standard newspaper that he and his wife had moved in to their home in October. The couple were secretive, they said, and had put the contents of their home up for sale before the attack, saying they were "moving out of Nairobi this week".

"We wish to inform that six other bodies were found at the scene and one police officer succumbed to his injuries," Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet had told the media late on Wednesday.

Twenty-eight people were admitted to hospitals and "five terrorists were eliminated", Efe news quoted Boinnet as saying.

The victims comprise 16 Kenyans, one Briton, one American, and three people of African descent who have not yet been identified, said Boinnet.

The Kenyan Red Cross has said that their psychosocial teams had reached out to 341 people with more expected to receive counselling through a hotline and at Chiromo mortuary.

The Somali jihadi group al-Shabaab, which joined Al Qaeda's international network in 2012, claimed responsibility for the attack saying it was "a response" to US President Donald Trump's controversial decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Nairobi had not seen any such attack since September 2013, when in an operation similar to Tuesday's, at least four al-Shabaab terrorists stormed the Westgate Mall not far from the 14 Riverside complex that is frequented by foreigners and Kenyans.

In the Westgate attack, 67 people died during the four days the terrorists remained holed up in the building.

The worst terrorist attack in Kenya was the 1998 bombing at the US embassy in Nairobi which left more than 200 dead and thousands wounded.

--IANS

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