Smoke rises from the Westgate Mall in Nairobi on September 23, 2013. The Westgate Shopping Mall attack last September in which 67 people were killed resulted from a catastrophic and systemic failure by Kenya’s security agencies, analysts believe. AFP FILE PHOTO |   NATION MEDIA GROUP.

The Westgate Shopping Mall attack last September in which 67 people were killed resulted from a catastrophic and systemic failure by Kenya’s security agencies, analysts believe.
Failure to detect the terrorist plot, to investigate and stop it were symptomatic of deeper failures of performance and coordination among security agencies, the analysts, some of them in government service, said.
The victims were of 13 nationalities.
Two of the attackers are believed to have flown from Somalia to Entebbe and travelled by road to Nairobi. The weapons they used were hidden in Eastleigh, as were the terrorists themselves.
On the day of the attack, they drove across the city with their weapons undetected.
Each had an AK-47 rifle, grenades and an ammunition pouch with eight magazines of 30 rounds each, or 240 bullets. In short, the four had enough bullets to kill 1,000 shoppers.
The government believes that the planning for the logistics of the attack took place at the Kakuma refugee camp.
At Westgate, security was provided by unarmed guards from a private company. With the exception of a few APs guarding the two banks at the shopping complex, the mall was virtually unprotected against an armed assault.
The National Intelligence Service has taken the main force of the criticism for failing to infiltrate the plotters and prevent the attack. The military has also been criticised for a ham-fisted response that resulted in a long siege, the partial destruction and looting of the mall while it was under military control and the relatively high casualty rate.
But an even bigger concern is the loss of effective border control, meaning that the government does not always know who is being allowed into the country.