Kenya offers Sh500 000 reward for information on car used in mall attack

Kenyan police are offering a 500,000 shilling reward for information about a vehicle believed to have been used in the attack last month on the Westgate mall in Nairobi which left at least 72 people dead, an official said on Monday.

The Kenyan Chief Inspector of Police, Jared Ojuok, said the police suspected the car, a silver Mitsubishi sedan was used to ferry both the attackers and the weapons.

The car contained explosives and weapons at the time of its recovery, almost a week after the attack, head of Anti-Terrorism Unit Boniface Mwaniki said, according to local media reports.

The car was purchased in the weeks prior to the assault on the shopping centre.

Police are chasing after two suspects connected to the vehicle.

One was nearly arrested at the weekend, but managed to evade officers, apparently after being tipped off.

The Kenyan military on Saturday named four gunmen, Somali and Kenyan nationals, allegedly involved in the mall attack, claimed by Somali Islamist militia al-Shabaab.

Kenyan officials had initially speculated between 10 and 15 gunmen were involved in the attack.

They announced at the end of the four-day siege that they had killed five attackers.

Officials are declining to comment on the discrepancies, saying investigations are still ongoing and forensic teams are at work inside the mall, parts of which had been reduced to rubble.