Kenyan Red Cross workers provide first aid to injured victims during an ongoing attack in Nairobi on Jan. 15, 2019.
Daniel Irungu—EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Scenes From Al-Shabab’s Deadly Attack on Nairobi Hotel

By Maïa Booker and Tara Law

An apparent terrorist attack on an upscale hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, on Jan. 15 killed at least 14 people, according to the country’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, as assailants set off explosions and gunfire on guests.

Kenyatta said in a Wednesday press conference that the suspected gunmen had all been killed. “All the terrorists have been eliminated,” he said while announcing that a siege on the complex had ended.

Police Inspector General Joseph Boinnet said a car had exploded around 3 p.m. local time near the hotel, known as dusitD2 and an assailant had also carried out a suicide attack in the hotel’s foyer. Assailants forced their way inside the hotel and fired on hotel guests with automatic weapons, NTV Kenya reported. A survivor told the channel that many hotel guests tried to hide as the attackers searched the hotel for survivors.

The gunfire continued for at least a few minutes after emergency responders arrived on-scene and black smoke billowed from the building, the Associated Press reported. Police told the AP that they had denoted a car containing explosives. A grenade was also spotted outside the hotel.

A police officer who had responded to the attack told the AP that he saw bodies, but there was “no time to count the dead.”

Somalia-based terror group al-Shabab claimed that it carried out the attack, the AP reported. The hotel complex, which is located in Nairobi’s Westlands neighborhood, is only about a mile away from the Westgate Mall, where al-Shabab killed 67 people in 2013. The terrorist group has killed hundreds of Kenyans since it declared in 2011 that it would retaliate against Kenya for sending troops to fight in Somalia. Although other African nations have sent more troops to fight in the conflict, al-Shabab has focused the majority of its attacks outside of Somalia on Kenya.

An injured man is evacuated from the scene of an explosion at a hotel complex in Nairobi. (Simon Maina—AFP/Getty Images)
An injured man is evacuated from the scene of an explosion at a hotel complex in Nairobi.
Simon Maina—AFP/Getty Images
Civilians flee as security forces aim their weapons at a hotel complex. (Khalil Senosi—AP)
Civilians flee as security forces aim their weapons at a hotel complex.
Khalil Senosi—AP
A man passes in front of burning cars that exploded at the entrance of dusitD2 hotel in Nairobi. (Kabir Dhanji—AFP/Getty Images)
A man passes in front of burning cars that exploded at the entrance of dusitD2 hotel in Nairobi.
Kabir Dhanji—AFP/Getty Images
Civilians flee through a window at a hotel complex. (Ben Curtis—AP)
Civilians flee through a window at a hotel complex.
Ben Curtis—AP
An unexploded grenade lies in a hallway of an upscale hotel complex. (Ben Curtis—AP)
An unexploded grenade lies in a hallway of an upscale hotel complex.
Ben Curtis—AP
Kenyan special forces take position outside a hotel complex. (Luis Tato—AFP/Getty Images)
Kenyan special forces take position outside a hotel complex.
Luis Tato—AFP/Getty Images
People are evacuated from a building after a bomb blast at an office attached to the dusitD2 hotel. (Kabir Dhanji—AFP/Getty Images)
People are evacuated from a building after a bomb blast at an office attached to the dusitD2 hotel.
Kabir Dhanji—AFP/Getty Images
A police officer on patrol after the attack. (Kabir Dhanji—AFP/Getty Images)
A police officer on patrol after the attack.
Kabir Dhanji—AFP/Getty Images
People gather at a police road block after the attack at an upscale hotel complex. (Yasuyoshi Chiba—AFP/Getty Images)
People gather at a police road block after the attack at an upscale hotel complex.
Yasuyoshi Chiba—AFP/Getty Images
An injured woman is evacuated from the scene of an explosion. (Luis Tato—AFP/Getty Images)
An injured woman is evacuated from the scene of an explosion.
Luis Tato—AFP/Getty Images
A firefighter stands next to the wreckage of cars in Nairobi's Westlands area. (Luis Tato—AFP/Getty Images)
A firefighter stands next to the wreckage of cars in Nairobi's Westlands area.
Luis Tato—AFP/Getty Images
A woman (behind the woman in front) is reunited with her family after her evacuation from the dusitD2 complex. (Yasuyoshi Chiba—AFP/Getty Images)
A woman (behind the woman in front) is reunited with her family after her evacuation from the dusitD2 complex.
Yasuyoshi Chiba—AFP/Getty Images
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Write to Maïa Booker at [email protected].