Kenya gunmen 'died in mall attack'

The gunmen who attacked an upmarket shopping centre in Kenya’s capital, killing at least 67 people, died in the incident, an FBI official has said.

Al Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants claimed responsibility for the attack on on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall on September 21 last year.

Al-Shabab said the attack was in retaliation for Kenya sending its troops to Somalia to fight the militants.

Dennis Brady, the FBI’s legal attache in Nairobi, said in an interview posted on the bureau’s website: “We believe, as do the Kenyan authorities, that the four gunmen inside the mall were killed.”

A New York Police Department report on the attack raised the possibility that the gunmen may have escaped.

The top State Department official for Africa, Linda Greenfield-Thomas, said in December that the NYPD report does not reflect the US government position.