Westgate terrorists used pre-cached weapons

They rented a shop at the mall prior to the attack.

The militants who led the attack on a Kenyan mall hired a shop there in the weeks leading up to the siege, senior security sources have told the BBC.

This gave them access to service lifts at Westgate enabling them to stockpile weapons and ammunition.

Having pre-positioned weapons they were able to re-arm quickly and repel the security forces.

Imagine the effort involved in searching everything that came into a mall or office building through the service entrances. Boxed store product, cases of bung wrap, cases of bags, cases of floor cleaner/wax etc. Even then, terrorists could easily substitute liquid explosives/incendiaries for any bottled service supplies or bulk food court drinks. The manpower need for that level of security is daunting indeed.

If they were patient enough, they could even build a weapons and explosives cache into a building under construction if they had some guys on the drywall crew. Damn little inspection of construction materials and worker tool boxes and such is done on most commercial projects.

Even supposedly secure sites, like US embassies, are routinely compromised during construction. Remember the embassy we had built in Moscow that was uninhabitable because the Soviets had laced so many bugging devices in during construction that it was impossible to remediate?

posted by Purp at 07:10 PM

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