We have made our bed, lets sleep in it

...some people were misled, but you cannot expect better from people with blood in their hands...

This is so annoying. If this is true, a reshuffle is needed in all security agencies. I wonder why these people can't keep their egos apart and work for the public that pays them. Or if not for pay, do what is Morally right.

i think it is time for families of affected solders to sue the KDF for taking them in harms way when they have not prepared them for a that kind of conflict/warfare and yet there are other units in kenya formed to do deal with those kind of events. Why did Kenya not take the police or GSU to Somalia al- shabbab areas instead of the KDF ? Are we now going to see KDF doing traffic police jobs. we want answers of what went wrong.

The government of Kenya needs to have an Emergency and Disaster Management Agency to co-ordinate and manage the ever rising threat of terrorism. They should get logistical, expertise and financial assistance from the Obama government . Why wait to loose more precious lives ?

We urgently need Emergency and Disaster Management Agency in Kenya to urgently deal with the rising threat of terrorism. The Kenya government should set up this agency and seek expertise, logistical and financial assistance from the Obama government.

The tribal comments need to go. We are at war with global criminals and we will need to work with our global partners to stop the terrorists. The police need better training. It should not have taken four days to deal with 15 terrorists. Nairobi needs to work with and learn from a city like New York that deals with constant threats. Everyone needs to be vigilant and be on the lookout at all times. To those who are corrupt and giving fake ID's to criminals or let them enter the country with weapons, shame on you.

i said it before, that the best Uhuruto can give kenyans is to demand very concrete answers from the security organ without fear nor favour, if found that some did not act when they were suppose to, then they must be made to answer for such an act. in countries which have got a working security aparatus it is very clear when such things happen who commands all the forces and whose shoulder the responsability falls.

Iam conversant with the goings on in both the Police and Military and the truth is participation of KDF was not called for in Westgate. I also know what went wrong in Westgate coz the Reece Squad Paramilitary GSU arm of Kenya Police was almost finishing the job. Its true they had secured 70% of the entire Mall and forced the terrorists in one end thus neutralising them. Unknown to many the next course of action was the reece to carefully spray chloroform thus lending both the terrorists and the hostages completely unconscious, the rest was for the Recce in gas masks to literally walk over and pick up the hostages, terrorists and their weapons and have a medics work on them to regain consciousness then this story could have been the sweetest by now. Samantha and Co would have woken up to a rude shock. KDF seems heroes for now but the truth is they messed up this operation big time. They came in as if they were in a battle field facing another army armed with heavy artillery, the first thing they did was to shoot the commander of the Reece squad who had used a rope to drop from the 1st floor to drop to the ground floor and after that coz of their superiority complex they ignored every other unit present and decided to go it solely. Reece men let go off the ground they had held as a result of these ruthless action by KDF and withdrew, that is when the hell broke loose. The Reece squad is an Israel trained outfit specifically to deal with such cases while the KDF's special forces are trained to deal with war situation with no civilians or hostages involved. KDF was supposed to give the Police squads cover jus in case their heavy fire was needed but its too unfortunate. This is why no hostage came out of the mall alive after the so called "final assault" which the KDF didnt have an option but to use heavy fire thus resulting in the extensive damage, the long time allowed the Terrorists to organise themselves while possibly killing their hostages one by one.

KDF messed up the whole thing! period!

Definitely our "Multi Operational Forces" have blundered. Hence no clear information of whats going on from the Government. I dont understand why give the army to do this when we have GSU Recce trained to deal with such scenario. As they say too many cooks spoil the broth.

What a shame! Instead of focusing on saving lives they were more focused on ranks and VIPs.....now every politician is ready to politicize the whole issue while we are here mourning and waiting for the truth! Shame on you!!!

And let the BLAME GAME continue....even among the readers...

Two words and I am done - March 4th. Thank you!

True. Its been downhill since then. We know what the priorities of this government are. Ogambo and Fatou. Not security. Look at the judiciary.... ati a reformed judiciary. Ha! Reformed my foot. Its all about allowances, per diems, breakfast by Serena Hotel daily,,,,, blah blah blah

Something does not smell right here. I'll know what it is if somebody tries to use this tragedy to ask for the postponement of ICC cases.

Thats one under the belt, shame on you. Criticise, but give an opined solution for a change.

An intelligence system who can plant bombs down town to divert public attention of the public on their dirt tricks of collaborating with criminals n drug barons n an obsession with Raila is bound to fail us like this. Sad!!

March 4th we put the nooze and now its slowly cutting the air.

I think this story is somewhat exaggerated. If you watched Majid's interview, he said that he was in the mall rescuing people together with plain clothes policemen and other armed civilians upto around 6:00 p.m. This story makes the claim that they left at the same time as the Recce unit in the early afternoon which is just not the case. I think this story needs some serious fact checking to prevent stirring up people unnecessarily.

Read the latest story about how the Army used heavy weaponry (an 84mm recoilless gun) that could have possibly caused the building to collapse and cause all the collateral damage. Why or why were they called to a hostage situation? They are absolutely the wrong people to deal with this.

If the terrorists wanted to, they'd have mowed these renegade Kenyan cops down. They had thoroughly sophisticated weapons, automatic guns, machine guns, grenades and lots others. These renegade cops were brave but fortunate...

Sorry, I meant Abdul Haji's interview and not Majid's interview.

I learn with shock that most of the bosses in KDF and Police, GSU etc is one tribe and the same tribe man has been accused of stealing from the victims. Why do Kenyans only trust one tribe with leadership yet no spasm of improvement has taken place since time in memorial after this tribe took over?

Tribalism will lead you nowhere. You need to think out of the box. This kind of thinking is what has been holding the Kenyans back. So you think if your tribe or any other tribe was in command things would have been different? Think Kenyan first

God's Sent? I doubt!

These tribal sentiments are not helping at all. what is the writer hoping to achieve that can help the prevailing circumstances. I thought we said we are one.

All you can think with your shallow mind is about tribes? Really sad.

Kenyans? We are never consulted when appointments are made. personally, I'd rather the best man for the job be appointed, but hey, I'm just Njomo

... and there mission was to rescue certain VIPs.

It is becoming more and more clear that this attack has nothing to do with Religious belief. This is organised crime and the so called Jihadists have nothing to do with the teachings of Islam. They are part of a global crime syndicate, who have lost their most valuable piece of real estate: Southern Somalia. There are very few places on earth where one could trade indiscriminately in Charcoal, Ivory and Rhino horn. Even fewer where you can anchor pirated ships or demand ransom whilst holding hostages.

Religion is completely irrelevant, merely a way of garnering some misguided support from disadvantaged members of society, and keeping ordinary, muslims fearful from speaking out against them.

It is time for us to call a spade a spade. These are well funded, determined, ruthless criminals. They are prepared to gun down and throw grenades at women and children, to shock and attempt to terrify us.

Let us not allow them to use the smokescreen of any religion to fool us.

They need to be targeted where it hurts them most, it must be a war on organised crime, illegal real estate, and poaching. It is certain that following these trails will lead back to that organisation with a religious sounding name.

Ali am afraid that if 'those criminals' get seriously pursued as you suggest, it wont be long before a religious group (including yourself if you are one..) start shouting in their defence with allegations that they're being pursued because of their faith (religion). This happens everytime, so i wont be surprised. It's more the reason why people asks for a clarification of the thin line between 'religion and terrorism).

Very insightful comment. These are mobsters that have taken root in the horn of Africa and they should be targeted wherever they are. What are they doing in Mogadishu? The infant Somalia government with the help of the African Union forces should send them packing to hell where they belong with their master, Satan. They are not Moslems as they do not adhere to the Koran teachings in any way shape or form.

Lack of police and military coordination in such incidents inevitibly leads to lack of response which results in loss of life, the failure to contain an incident of this scale has clearly shown how the militants exploited the un preparedness of the security forces, lack go communication between all units on the ground and no clear command structure will inevitibly mean failure.

Incident control should be with the police, if hey can not deal with it then they hand over to the military but what ever happens a system of clear direct command and control needs to be in place, I watched the footage and was confused as to who w dong what and why, the fact that units were sent to rescue VIP groups ashamed me that even in a life or death situation class distinction still accounts for who lives and who dies, we are all human beings, gods children there should be no distinction, if corruption has led to this disaster then there is a lot of soul searching to be done in Kenya right now

i think it is time for families of affected solders to sue the KDF for taking them in harms way
when they have not prepared them for a that kind of conflict/warfare and yet there are other units in kenya formed to do deal with those kind of events. Why did Kenya not take the police or GSU to Somalia al- shabbab areas instead of the KDF ? Are we now going to see KDF doing traffic police jobs. we want answers of what went wrong.

al shabab should have gone for those who lead kenya and not the innocent mwanainchi. Ordinary kenyans are busy trying to eke out a living.If al shabab they had to settle scores they should have taken on someone their own kind, the kenyan military...Al shabab are cowards and psycophaths

I agree with you. They should have attacked a barrack

Clearly what has become our way of life? Tribalism, Nepotism, Insecurity, Corruption,
Road carnage, Prostitution, Infidelity, Incompetence,selfishness, M-Churches…the list goes
on: I’m afraid Terrorism might join in. We need to sort out our society short-comings
(which all of us are guilty of) to overcome all the vices otherwise we might
just destroy ourselves.

Go to your faceBk and type Justice Haki na Ukweli. If you do have one, hit the Keyboard and let us debate on how we can pull together to kill corruption, tribalism and social vices. I try my best but who cares to listen?

"Jurisdictional differences appear to have extended to blame games among security agencies, as Kenya recovers from its worst terror attack since the 1998 bombing of the Embassy of the United States of America in Nairobi". THAT IS WHY EVEN OUR CONSTITUTION IS AMERICAN.

Someone's gotta take the flak.

Mwikali wa mina ata naku?Someone's gotta take the flak???

Ther e is a group that I also want to blame...the Body odf Christ.Please wkae up.these are the last days!

if turf wars can extend to our disciplined forces then we Kenyans should brace ourselves for God forbid these kind of attacks from the terrorists.let our forces be professional rather than being like youthwingers.how can an officer accept food item from a raia in the name of volunteer infront of camera withut feeling ashamed>? they should behave next these volunteers could be their accomplices & the food could be drugged.WATCH OUT OUR OFFICERS PLEASE .this advice is for free.

i have a feeling this would have been prevented......lets uncorver the truth as investigations kick in

It is time we have clear-cut command centres, and reformed our security apparatus to be vigilant and always on stand-by alert, s-called code Orange. I believe the NIS, as the principle internal intelligence gathering and processing unit should be given full capacity and command in the anti-terror war. Duplication of duties give rise to the rivalry witnessed. Arrogant senior officers will be wont to ignore intelligence from those they consider inferior to themselves, or those they hold in disdain. Let's have an FBI-like unit outside the authority of the IG, best reporting to the National Security Council. Parliament, it is up to you now.

The problem here is..check Kazora, do you really see Kimaiyo as a qualified trained police chief or just a political appointee? Are the guys heading security systems really qualified to hold the jobs when they cannot have the slightest idea about how to deal with common criminals? Lenku was a hotelier, rather than head the tourism docket now heads internal security? he has simply no idea how it works. Did you see or hear Rachael Omollo, the defence minister?..she was neither a police officer or a professional soldier. come guys!

I hope that UhuRuto will be able to stay above the mud-slinging and self-exoneration that is sure to come out of this drama.

Hard decisions must be made, and there is no room for error. If a terrorist in Kamiti can guide the murderers of Westgate, and if terrorists can rent houses and shops and spend 90 days stocking up on bombs and machine guns without anybody taking notice, something is terribly wrong at all levels.

Not really... I do not agree with you. Instructions were given and priorities were made. Clearly we know what the priorities are for this government. Certainly not militants.... Choices, my brother, have consequences. Do not blame the chief officers. They simply followed instructions