ABIn one of the most memorable images to emerge from
inside the Nairobi mall attacked last weekend by Islamic extremists, a
4-year-old girl is seen running toward a man who is reaching out a hand
to pull her to safety.
The man was Abdul Haji, a 39-year-old real estate executive who
rushed to the mall as the attack got underway. He managed to evacuate
scores of people to safety, including that young American girl, Portia
Walker, and is being hailed in Kenya as a hero.
As the gunmen began their rampage in Nairobi's upscale Westgate Mall
early Saturday afternoon, Haji got a short text from his brother who was
at the mall. "I'm stuck at the Westgate. It's probably a terrorist
attack. Pray for me." Haji's immediate thought was that militants had
gone to assassinate his brother.
Until just a few weeks ago, his brother was an undercover
counterterrorism official battling organizations like al Shabab, the al
Qaeda-linked group that has claimed responsibility for the four-day
siege that left almost 70 people dead. But a local media outlet had
recently revealed Haji's brother's identity and the family - including
their father, a former defense minister - had started receiving death
threats.
Haji says he grew up around guns and lately had been carrying his
pistol with him. "I left where I was and I headed straight to the
Westgate," Haji told ABC News. "Luckily on that particular day I had
actually carried my licensed gun with me so I didn't have to go back
home to waste time and pick up a gun, I went straight to the mall."
When he arrived he quickly figured out his brother was not the
target. Haji joined up with a group of around 15 men outside, including
some security officers, most of them armed and some wearing body armor,
and headed into the mall with workers from the Red Cross. "It was like a
war zone," he said. "I've never seen such a massacre. I've never come
across such a thing. It was shocking. There were young girls, there were
ladies, elderly people, some children. We were shocked."
The group had taken a ramp up to the mall's top floor which they
started clearing, going store to store and yelling at people to get out,
many of whom didn't know which side the men were on. "Most of them were
really petrified, they could not move. They were lying down on the
ground as if they were dead but they were not dead," said Haji. "We kept
shouting that we're police officers, 'get up, get up, open the door,
we're police officers.'"
As they arrived on the mall's ground floor, the attackers opened fire
on the group, shooting one of the men Haji was with in the stomach. It
was then that Haji came face to face with one of the attackers, whom he
described as "of dark complexion, he had a black bandanna tied on his
head."
"When his eyes and my eyes met, he started taunting me and telling
come closer," Haji recalled. "Telling me in Swahili, 'come, come.' As if
it was a joke to him. This whole thing was a joke to him."
Nearby, a woman was trapped behind a table. Haji yelled at her to run
to them but the woman, 39 year-old Katherine Walker, said she couldn't
because she had three young children with her. Haji told her to send the
eldest, 4-year-old Portia, who ran across. "[A] very brave girl," said
Haji affectionately. "She's running toward a man with a gun and she was
very brave."
"I don't know how she knew to do it but she did," Katherine Walker
later told The Telegraph newspaper, "she did what she was told and she
went."
Walker and another woman followed close behind with the other two
children who then re-united outside with the family's two teenage sons
who had been shopping elsewhere in the mall. "I was worried about family
in America seeing [the photo] because we haven't really shared the
whole story with them yet," Walker told the newspaper. "For me, I know
the story behind it and that it ends well. I think I owe Mr. Haji a hug
or two."
As Haji arrived at a Nairobi hotel for the interview, he was
instantly recognized by hotel staff who asked for photos with him. But
Haji dismisses all the talk of him being a hero, saying he was just
going to the mall to save his brother. "I think anybody in the situation
would have probably done the same thing," he said. "[If] he was armed
and thinking the worst about his family he would have probably done the
same thing."
Haji claims he's coping well in the aftermath of the ordeal. He says
he doesn't remember any nightmares but his wife has told him that he has
been crying in his sleep. "I never saw anything like that," said Haji.
"It'll probably stick with me for a long time. And I just hope I don't
have to go through the same thing again."
The U.N. Security Council voted
unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons
stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the
battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict.
The vote after
two weeks of intense negotiations marked a major breakthrough in the
paralysis that has gripped the council since the Syrian uprising began.
Russia and China previously vetoed three Western-backed resolutions
pressuring President Bashar Assad's regime to end the violence.
"Today's
historic resolution is the first hopeful news on Syria in a long time,"
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council immediately after
the vote, but he and others stressed that much more needs to be done to
stop the fighting that has left more 100,000 dead.
"A red light
for one form of weapons does not mean a green light for others," the
U.N. chief said. "This is not a license to kill with conventional
weapons."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the "strong,
enforceable, precedent-setting" resolution shows that diplomacy can be
so powerful "that it can peacefully defuse the worst weapons of war."
Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the resolution does not
automatically impose sanctions on Syria. The resolution calls for
consequences if Syria fails to comply, but those will depend on the
council passing another resolution in the event of non-compliance. That
will give Assad ally Russia the means to stop any punishment from being
imposed.
As a sign of the broad support for the resolution, all 15 council members signed on as co-sponsors.
For
the first time, the council endorsed the roadmap for a political
transition in Syria adopted by key nations in June 2012 and called for
an international conference to be convened "as soon as possible" to
implement it.
Ban said the target date for a new peace conference in Geneva is mid-November.
Whether the council can remain united to press for an end to the conflict remains to be seen.
"We
know despite its clear usefulness, one resolution alone will not save
Syria," France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said after the vote.
Syria's
U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari accused unnamed nations of already
giving the resolution a negative interpretation and trying to "derail it
from its lofty purposes."
And Republican senators John McCain and
Lindsey Graham, who have been harshly critical of Obama's policy on
Syria, dismissed the resolution as "another triumph of hope over
reality." It "contains no meaningful or immediate enforcement
mechanisms, let alone a threat of the use of force for the Assad
regime's non-compliance," they said in a statement that was highly
skeptical that Russia would ever approve a threat of force for
non-compliance.
The vote came just hours after the world's
chemical weapons watchdog adopted a U.S.-Russian plan that lays out
benchmarks and timelines for cataloguing, quarantining and ultimately
destroying Syria's chemical weapons, their precursors and delivery
systems.
The Security Council resolution enshrines the plan
approved by Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, making
it legally binding.
The
agreement allows the start of a mission to rid Syria's regime of its
estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal by mid-2014, significantly
accelerating a destruction timetable that often takes years to complete.
Kerry
said the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile will begin
in November and be completed as called for by the middle of next year.
"We
expect to have an advance team on the ground (in Syria) next week,"
OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan told reporters at the organization's
headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands immediately after its 41-member
executive council approved the plan.
The OPCW plan gives Damascus a
week to provide detailed information on its arsenal, including the name
and quantity of all chemicals in its stockpile; the type and quantity
of munitions that can be used to fire chemical weapons; and the location
of weapons, storage facilities and production facilities. All chemical
weapons production and mixing equipment should be destroyed no later
than Nov. 1.
The Security Council resolution does not assign blame
for any chemical attack. Some Western countries had wanted the draft to
demand that the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks be referred to
the International Criminal Court to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Diplomats said this was discussed, but Russia objected.
As
a result, the draft says only that the Security Council "expresses its
strong conviction that those individuals responsible for the use of
chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic should be held
accountable."
The recent flurry of diplomatic activity followed
the Aug. 21 poison gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians in a
Damascus suburb, and by President Barack Obama's threat of U.S. strikes
in retaliation.
After Kerry said Assad could avert U.S. military
action by turning over "every single bit of his chemical weapons" to
international control within a week, Russia quickly agreed. Kerry and
Lavrov signed an agreement in Geneva on Sept. 13 to put Syria's chemical
weapons under international control for later destruction, and Assad's
government accepted.
Tough negotiations, primarily between Russia and the United States, followed on how Syria's stockpile would be destroyed.
The
U.N. resolution's adoption was assured when the five veto-wielding
permanent members of the Security Council — Russia, China, the United
States, France and Britain — signed off on the text on Thursday.
Russia
and the United States had been at odds over the enforcement issue.
Russia opposed any reference to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which
allows for military and nonmilitary actions to promote peace and
security.
The final resolution states that the Security Council
will impose measures under Chapter 7 if Syria fails to comply, but this
would require adoption of a second resolution.
It bans Syria from
possessing chemical weapons and condemns "in the strongest terms" the
use of chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack, and any other use. It
also would ban any country from obtaining chemical weapons or the
technology or equipment to produce them from Syria.
Kerry stressed
that the resolution for the first time makes a determination that "use
of chemical weapons anywhere constitutes a threat to international peace
and security," which sets a new international norm.
The
resolution authorizes the U.N. to send an advance team to assist the
OPCW's activities in Syria. It asks Secretary-General Ban to submit
recommendations to the Security Council within 10 days of the
resolution's adoption on the U.N. role in eliminating Syria's chemical
weapons program.
"Syria
cannot select or reject the inspectors," Kerry said. "Syria must give
those inspectors unfettered access to any and all sites and any and all
people."
The resolution requires the council to review compliance with the OPCW's plans within 30 days, and every month after that.
In
an indication of the enormity of the task ahead, the OPCW appealed for
donations to fund the disarmament, saying it will have to hire new
weapons inspectors and chemical experts.
To that end, Britain's
foreign minister announced after Friday's vote that the UK would donate
$3 million to OPCW Syria Trust fund.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Security Council that China was also prepared to help fund the disarmament mission.
Meanwhile,
a group of U.N. inspectors already in Syria investigating the alleged
use of chemical weapons said Friday they are probing a total of seven
suspected attacks, including in the Damascus suburb where hundreds were
killed last month. That number was raised from three sites previously.
The
OPCW destruction plan calls on Syria to give inspectors unfettered
access to any site suspected of chemical weapons involvement, even if
Syria's government did not identify the location. That gives the
inspectors unusually broad authority.
Andre Villas-Boas on Thursday night claimed that former mentor Jose Mourinho
tried to block his progress as a coach and that they have not spoken in four
years.
Broken down relationship: Andre
Villas-Boas says he and Jose Mourinho have a "mutual respect for one
another" but no longer a friendship
The Portuguese rivals meet in the Premier League for the first time on
Saturday lunchtime at White Hart Lane when Tottenham
take on Chelsea.
And Villas-Boas has raised the temperature before the clash by revealing the
full extent of the bitter breakdown in their relationship, which the Spurs
manager says is beyond repair.
“We had a great personal and professional relationship before that we don’t
have now,” Villas-Boas said at Tottenham’s training ground. “I don’t think
we need explanations on personal relationships and friendship. But our
relationship broke down.
"I think we have mutual respect for one another and what we went through
cannot just disappear. But it’s not like it was before.”
Together with Steve Clarke and Brendan Rodgers, Villas-Boas is one of three
present Premier League managers who served their time as Mourinho
apprentices.
A
report by a committee of the United States House of Representatives
has linked the fundamentalist Islamist sect, Boko Haram, to al
Shabaab, the terror group that carried out the September 21 Westgate
Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya.
Al-Shabaab is a Somali-based group whose members are said to be highly proficient in suicide bombing.
The report dated September 13, 2013
and entitled, ‘Boko Haram: Growing Threat to the US Homeland’, also
acknowledged the growing relationship between the Nigerian sect and
another terror group, the Al Qaeda in the land of the Islamic Maghreb.
The 39-page report noted that “while
there is no evidence that al Qaeda’s core in Afghanistan and Pakistan
commands Boko Haram’s operations, it is clear from the words of multiple
US officials and media reports that Boko Haram is supportive of, and
supported by Al Qaeda networks such as AQIM.”
It noted that “it is the unity of
ideology and mutual hatred for the West between the Al Qaeda networks
that exposes the danger Boko Haram poses to the U.S Homeland.”
The committee described Boko Haram as a
“hardened and sophisticated terror network” that required multiple
simultenous local and international efforts to enhance the capacity and
capability of the the Nigerian Police and the military to curtail its
activities.
It said there was an urgent need by the
US to designate the sect as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation because it
has shown no signs of ending its aggression against the government of
Nigeria and the Western world.
The commiteee wrote, “The world is
coming to know more about Boko Haram; their intentions, what they’re
capable of, and who is supporting them.
“The US Intelligence Community is
working to erase the gaps in our understanding of Boko Haram, but it is
already evident they are a serious threat to US interests and
potentially to the US Homeland.
‘‘Acknowledging this threat publicly by
designating Boko Haram an FTO will establish a legal mechanism for
prosecuting any supporters within US jurisdictions.
“This is an increasingly important tool given their attempts to market themselves to a wider international audience.
“Boko Haram shows no signs of ending its
campaign against the government of Nigeria and the Western world. Two
years after their August 2011 bombing of a United Nations facility in
Abuja, Nigeria, Boko Haram remains a threat to the international
community, and continues to be a developing threat to the US Homeland.”
The report said that Boko Haram had
“highly skilled bomb makers who might have received training from
experienced militants elsewhere, potentially indicating a stronger
relationship between them and AQIM or Al Shabaab.
It said that besides building
sophisticated weaponry, it was now possible that Boko Haram had acquired
or will acquire SA-7 and SA-24 shoulder-fired surface-to-air
missiles.
The SA-7 missile is effective up to
1,300 metres, while some newer models reach altitudes of almost four
kilometres. Although most aircraft cruise around 9,140 metres, the
SA-7 could be used to target aircraft during takeoff and landing.
In the report, the committee warned,
“It does not take much imagination to picture the threat these weapons
would pose to commercial aviation in Abuja if they fell into Boko Haram
hands.”
Out of the 20,000 such weapons in Libya,
only 5,000 of them had been secured through a $40m US programme to buy
up loose missiles during the fall of the Gadhafi regime. Most are
believed to have found their way into countries that share common
boundaries with Nigeria.
The committee acknowledged that the
Goodluck Jonathan administration had taken some potentially promising
steps in its effort to fight Boko Haram.
It said the appointment of Col. Sambo
Dasuki (retd), a northern Nigerian Muslim, to the position of National
Security Adviser on June 23, 2012, demonstrated Jonathan’s willingness
to give northerners and Muslims a visible role in Nigeria’s struggle
with Boko Haram.
“Dasuki has taken the lead in organising
government’s fight against Boko Haram, and his background as a Muslim
from the North may give him obvious and potent symbolic significance,”
the committee said.
In spite of this, the committee observed
that concerns regarding the capability of the Jonathan administration
to effectively deal with Boko Haram remained prominent.
The committee said without foreign
assistance from countries such as the US and the UK, the Nigerian
government would almost certainly face a prolonged battle in
neutralising Boko Haram.
According to the committee, the State
Department, which has also engaged Nigeria through its African Coastal
and Border Security programme, has focused its assistance on
peacekeeping support, training, border and maritime security, and
increasing military professionalisation.
But it lamented that in spite of the
training, the “JTF continues to behave unprofessionally, and has been
accused of human rights abuses by Human Rights Watch, among other
entities, including the State Department’s most recent annual human
rights report.”
It also warned that greater pressure
must be applied to the JTF to abandon counter-productive and brutal
tactics alienating northerners.
The committee said failure of the
Secretary of State to designate the Boko Haram sect an FTO, was the
‘most obvious flaw in the US effort to combat it and prevent its
expansion.’
It said, “If Boko Haram were to be
designated an FTO, it would support US intelligence community efforts to
curb the group’s financing, stigmatise and isolate it internationally,
heighten public awareness and knowledge, and signal to other governments
the US takes the threat from Boko Haram seriously.
“If Boko Haram is not designated an FTO,
its potential threat to the US and its capability to attack the
homeland would likely increase. It is therefore an urgent next step to
take in fighting this growing al Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria.”
The committee further said as the number
of attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram had increased in 2013, so had the
attention paid to the group by the US.
