More than two months have passed since al-Shabaab's bloody siege of Westgate mall, and a number of important questions -- ones that Kenyan officials publicly pledged to look into in a timely manner -- remain unanswered.
![Kenyan policemen and soldiers are shown taking positions during al-Shabaab's September attack on Nairobi's Westgate mall. More than two months later, many questions, including how security forces could have better performed during the crisis, remain unanswered. [Nichole Sobecki/AFP]](http://sabahionline.com/shared/images/2013/12/03/kenya-westgate-questions.jpg)
What happened to the promised commission that was going to look into security lapses? Have all the victims been accounted for? Were the bodies of the attackers identified among the dead?
As the wait for the answers to these and many more questions turn from weeks to months, many are wondering when -- and if -- the Kenyan government plans to provide the answers.
What happened to the Westgate commission?
Days after the end of the siege, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta promised to set up a commission to investigate the Westgate Mall terror attack and any potential security lapses.
Chairman of the parliamentary committee on national security and administration Asman Kamama told Sabahi that among the issues the committee recommended the president to look into were: security lapses that enabled the terrorists to sneak into Kenya; how the attackers stockpiled weapons at the mall undetected; how the security agencies handled the siege; and if there were instances of rivalry between the army and police that enabled the terrorists to gain ground inside the mall.
"You recall there were reports that the Recce elite squad had the situation in the mall under control within hours of the attack until the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) intervened and a rift ensued which enabled the terrorists to regroup in the mall and kill more shoppers," Kamama said. "Kenyans would want to know who called the military and what role did they play and how similar future threats could be handled by multi-security agencies."
But two months later, the president has gone silent on the commission, leading to speculations that he has changed his mind altogether on whether to proceed with the investigation.
"The president appears to have developed cold feet," said Macharia Munene, an international relations and history professor at United States International University in Nairobi. "Probably he does not want to create further rift between the military and police."
Munene told Sabahi the president likely wants to protect the image of both security agencies and not expose their operational shortcomings through a commission of inquiry.
However, commenting on the reason behind the delay, government spokesman Manoah Esipisu said the administration was still planning to establish the commission but would wait for the forensic investigation to be completed.
"When that is completed, then the president will be able to look at the commission and determine parameters he wants investigated. But setting up a commission before completion of forensic investigations I think would not be a prudent idea and the president believes that," he said at a press conference November 22nd.
Esipisu announced on November 14th that detectives had finsihed their on-site investigations at the mall.
Could only three men have looted Westgate mall?
After initially refuting accusations that officers had looted shops at the mall, the military changed its tune October 29th, announcing it had court-martialed two soldiers, Victor Otieno and Victor Ashiundu, for looting, with a third individual, Isaiah Wanjala, being probed.
But doubts still linger on how three soldiers could be the only culprits in the looting spree at the mall.
"We saw owners of jewellery, watch and mobile shops agitated after they found shops emptied. Standard Chartered Bank reported its ATMs breached and Millionaires Casino lost millions of cash," said Stephen Evans Omondi, director of business development and public relations at the Nairobi-based advertising firm Black & White Media. He added that even restaurants reported alcohol stocks missing.
The widespread looting could not have been orchestrated by only three people, he said.
"The government should not seem to condone impunity. Keeping mum will neither resolve the looting spectacle nor end speculation of mass looting by soldiers," Omondi said.
Have all the missing been accounted for?
Nearly a month after the siege, the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) still listed 23 people as missing, and has since not announced a reduction of that number. However, the Kenyan government says all civilians had been accounted for.
"By the time we closed Visa Oshwal Academy, which we had established for Kenyans to report their missing persons to, all people listed as missing were reunited with their families while bodies at the city mortuary were positively identified as those of missing people," said Mutea Iringo, principal secretary of the Ministry of Interior and Co-ordination of National Government.
"Therefore, we do not have any report of missing persons as a result of Westgate tragedy," he told Sabahi on November 21st.
Forensic experts are still conducting DNA testing on body parts that were not identifiable visually, Iringo said. "What is remaining and to be completed soon is complex analysis and matching of body tissues which experts suspect belonged to dead terrorists," he said.
Where is the forensic evidence on the attackers?
Also pending are the government's definitive answers on the identity of the attackers.
On October 4th, KDF spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir named Abu Baara al-Sudani, Omar Nabhan, Khattab al-Khane and Omar al Mogadishu, also known as Umayr, as the terrorists who attacked the mall.
Chirchir said the men were identified thanks to the security footage retrieved from the mall.
However, two months later, the government has not yet confirmed it was able to positively identify their bodies among the dead.
"Without some kind of definite form of evidence about the fate of terrorists, the public will remain skeptical and buy the popular theory that they [terrorists] escaped," said Jerry Kitiku, a retired Kenyan army colonel and the executive director of Security Research and Information Centre in Nairobi.
Kitiku wondered why it has taken so long to announce the findings of the forensic experts. "We were waiting for a final briefing with conclusive evidence about their findings, but there is deafening silence on this front," Kitiku said.