Kenya’s foreign minister says two or three young American men and one British woman were among the attackers who stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi.

Heavily-armed al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabab militants attacked the Westgate shopping center in Nairobi on September 21, taking hostages and holding onto the mall for three days.

Some 60 people were killed in the terrorist attack.

On Monday, Kenya’s Interior Ministry announced that security forces had regained control of the mall.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said the American men were 18 to 19 years old.

“From the information we have, two or three Americans and so far I’ve heard of one Brit. That just goes to underline the global nature of this war that we are fighting,” she added.

She also claimed that the African country needs the cooperation of other governments in the fight against terrorism, “and much more with the US and the UK, because both the victims and the perpetrators came from Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United States.”


Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the US State Department, however, rejected the claim that American nationals were involved in the attack, saying, the State Department had “no definitive evidence of the nationalities or the identities” of the assailants.

Meanwhile, White House spokesman Ben Rhodes did not rule out the likely involvement of US citizens in the assault, explaining, “US officials have seen reports coming out of al-Shabab that indicate information along those lines.”

“We do monitor very carefully and have for some time been concerned about efforts by al-Shabab to recruit Americans or US persons to come to Somalia,” Rhodes said.

The militants, the majority of whom are reportedly from Somalia, said the raid was in retaliation for the presence of Kenyan troops in Somalia.