Three Alleged Mall Attackers Lived in U.S.; U.N. General Assembly to Tackle Syria's Chemical Weapons
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.</s>FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, everyone, I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Breaking news this hour, we have just learned that three of the alleged attackers in that mall shooting in Kenya lived in the United States. That's according to sources within Al-Shabaab, the terror group that has claimed responsibility. Two lived in Minnesota and one in Missouri. The U.S. State Department says it is trying to match those names, but it's becoming more confident, the State Department that is, that American citizens may have been involved in this attack. The massacre started yesterday afternoon when gunmen burst into that upscale mall in Nairobi. Sixty-eight people were killed according to Kenya's Red Cross. And 175 were hurt. Right now, 30 people are still being held hostage inside that mall by about 10 to 15 militants. Nima Elbagir is live for us from the scene. Nima, what is the latest on trying to free, potentially, those hostages?</s>NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the impasse still continues here, Fredricka. We're continuing to hear reports from security and intelligence sources that a major assault is going. But as you can imagine, this is very, very careful, very slow, very painstaking work. It's being undertaken under the cover of darkness, as you can see around me here. The biggest concern, having freed some over a thousand hostages for the Kenyan government is that they're going to try and get those 30 home safely. This, of course, comes as the relatives, the friends and the loved ones of those who were injured in this attack are - they're spending pretty anxious evening. Some of those injuries sustained, we've been hearing from the Kenyan Red Cross and medical sources are extraordinarily critical. The Kenyan Red Cross has actually gone so far as to call for national blood drive. They're concern with blood and the hospital is running short. This is one of the ways that Kenyans have been coming forward and trying - they say to show a little bit of strength in this tragedy. And they've been turning out in their</s>WHITFIELD: Frightening and very tense situation. Thanks so much. Nima Elbagir. So we are, indeed, learning a bit more about the attackers who carried out this massacre, including the fact that three allegedly lived in the United States. We're going to go with one of our correspondents now. Evan Perez. Evan, what can you tell us about this information that we're learning that according to some Al Shabaab sources, they're saying that three of the alleged attackers had lived in the United States in Minnesota as well as Missouri. What do you know about that?</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. Hi, Fredricka. This is something that's obviously a very big concern for U.S. law enforcement. It's something that they've been looking at for some years now, which is a concern about recruitment of young Somalis, mostly from Minnesota, but also in other communities in the United States. There have been several prosecutions of these recruiters. People who are looking for money and also recruiting young people to send over there to fight. Big concern obviously is these people learn - they joined Al Shabaab. They learn essentially how to commit terrorist acts and they could come back to the United States and do that here. So far, there's been no sign of that. And then nationally, in recent years, the FBI has said that they've seen a decrease in that recruitment. Now, they're still looking at the situation. There's no confirmation yet. I think as Elise Labott has reported already, they're increasingly concerned that it might be true. But at this point, they're still very much monitoring the situation.</s>WHITFIELD: Yes, and when you talk about the recruitment that's taking place in the United States, there is already a fairly high concentration of Somali-Americans in Minnesota. And there have been many reports in recent years that a lot of the recruiting has actually taken place there that many young -</s>PEREZ: That's right.</s>WHITFIELD: Somali-Americans had been recruited from the Minnesota area, been trained and tried to be coerce into this new life associated with Al Shabaab. What more can you tell us about the real realities of that?</s>PEREZ: The issue has been that the Somali population there is - it's a very close knit group. The FBI has been working to try to work with tribal leaders to be able to influence the situation. The first known American to carry out a suicide bombing came from that area several years ago. This first started in 2008. The FBI has doubled down on trying to work with the tribal leaders there to try to make sure that they're talking to the young people to keep them off of this. But it is a struggle. Apparently, it's not over. You know, they still believe about 20 of these people have disappeared over there and they don't where they are. And so that's the big concern for U.S. law enforcement.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Evan Perez, justice correspondent. Thank you so much for your time, coming to us from Washington. Let's go to London now where senior international correspondent Nic Robertson joins us now. So Nic, we're hearing just a little bit of information from Al Shabaab sources about where some of these alleged attackers may originate. From London, from Canada and now we're also hearing reportedly three who have lived in the United States. So what more are you learning about who these alleged attackers may be?</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the British foreign offices are checking to see if the name of the person who is described by Al Shabaab as being British, if he really is. I mean, we do know that as recently as last year, British officials were saying as many as a hundred people who lived in Britain had gone to Somalia for training. We also know that at least 40 U.S. citizens or U.S. residents had gone to Somalia for training and fighting with Al Shabaab. Of those, half of them couldn't be accounted for, at least at the beginning of last year. And so at them moment, it really is an effort to confirm if those are really accurate names and that is known at the moment and then to try to figure out who else they are associated with, what else maybe being fanned right now. The assessment until last year had been that Al Shabaab and the Americans and British who were going there were being watched closely enough to know that they couldn't perpetrate attacks in the United States or Britain. That this incident is really going to raise big questions again, Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: And Nic, it is a very perplexing situation because apparently, some of these sources within Al Shabaab also are telling CNN that they are not willing to negotiate but here, you have this hostage stand off involving potentially 30 hostages and that according to some sources, Kenyan authorities do have them cornered in this mall. What are the demands likely to be from the attackers, the alleged attackers?</s>ROBERTSON: You know what, Fredricka, we don't know what the demands are. But it's almost at this stage irrelevant. Because what Al Shabaab wants to do is to create the maximum amount of publicity it can for itself. This is why, it wasn't a hit and run attack. This is why this is an attack that has gone into a hostage scenario because they know it would draw attention. They released these names because they know that would draw further attention. So, really, it does seem to be at this stage to be immaterial. But we do know and perhaps the best way to analyze what's going to happen next is to look at the Al-Qaeda linked attack in Mumbai in India in 2008. Whereby the attackers there were essentially on a suicide mission. They've stocked up with ammunition and weapons and basically fought until those stockpiles ran out. That is the Al Qaeda method. And, again, the fact that Al Shabaab released names of some of the people that claims or the attackers in the building is an indication that perhaps they will have recorded martyrdom videos. These so called videos where these individuals will have stated essentially why they took part in the attack. And if that's the case, we'll expect - can expect Al Shabaab to release those videos in the coming weeks. So I think the analysis here is going to be a very difficult one for negotiators, for people trying to release all those people still held in the building because the indications are these people will and probably and in all likelihood try to fight to the death, Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Nic Robertson, thank you so much for that information. U.S. secretary of state John Kerry called the attack "an unspeakable evil." In a statement Secretary Kerry said "Attacks like this can't change who we are, a people committed to peace and justice for all, but rather must reaffirm our determination to counter extremism and promote tolerance everywhere." So we are expecting to hear from President Obama in the next hour. The president will be honoring the victims of last weeks' Navy Yard massacre at a memorial. The service will be held at the U.S. Marine barracks in Washington. On Monday, 12 people were killed when former Navy reservist Aaron Alexis open fir inside the building at Navy headquarters. Suicide bombers struck a church in Pakistan killing 77 people. The blast happened today in Peshawar, about 75 miles west of the capital of Islamabad. Witnesses say two attackers struck the protestant church there just as services concluded. Choir members and children attending Sunday school, are among the dead. Pakistan's prime minister and Pope Francis also condemning the attack. World leaders will gather this week at the United Nations for the general assembly, They'll be talking about the U.S.-Russian deal that forces Syria to hand over its stockpile of chemical weapons. The debate will center on the threat of course, if Syria doesn't follow through. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh joining us right now, keeping a close eye on the developments and all those pending developments. How might this week unfold at the U.N.?</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, people I think were hoping certain diplomats I spoke at the U.N. that they ought to get this resolution, really kind of backing up in international law, in many ways. What John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, agreed last weekend in Geneva. We were hoping he wasn't going to get swallowed in the showmanship and see the U.N. for this next week with all the heads of state come piling in. But it has hit that problem - will it reference the threats of force if Syria doesn't move fast enough? That's the sticking point, really. It seems you're not going to see much budging on either side on really. The issue though is what timetable are we seeing. Well, last weekend, John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov said "Look, you got a week, Syria, to tell us what chemical weapons you have." Many thought they not actually have obey that timetable. But they have, remarkably. Yes, given the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons. The group the U.N. charged of disarming people from chemical weapons, giving them a long list of where they have chemical weapons, making that open declaration fast and they never actually said publicly that they would adhere to that timetable. So many surprised to see that speed of moment. But the real question</s>WHITFIELD: Tricky, indeed. Nick Paton Walsh, thanks so much. It is the dawn of a new international terror threat. Al Shabaab ramping up this deathly strategy, the Kenyan mall attack is the biggest one this terror group has carried out thus far.