Something about this video. .........so the cameraman was at a higher floor with some cops I guess -OPEN TARGETS. So, why was the guy crawling? Hiding from who? All the same, Praises to him kwa kujitolea n the lady for her courage.

The role of Recce vis-a-vis KDF and their complimentation will be a discussion point given the progression of events at Westgate in this unprecedented attack.

well, enough has been said about your post. mungu akusaidie this was not your grandma's kitchen that they were getting into. There were all sorts of uncertainties.

I will stick to my story.. call your KDF SF whatever you want to..
I'm not yapping from any comfort.. im talking from first hand information..

The RECCE squad is Israeli trained and for such occassions and when they went in they cornered the militants into one specific floor.. and this was because the courage of the regular police was somewhat a surprise to the thugs..

The Gigiri police were the first to respond, thinking that it was some robbers.. as they came in to engage, the banks in the building had pressed a distress call.. the flying squad was next on the scene.. the galant plainclothes you see on the photo guiding people out..
then they realised these are not normal Bank robbers cos of the massacre that was evident..
Thats when the RECCE and RDU squad came in..

Look at the photos.. the guys in blue with bullet proof vests..

It is when this team, with the help of Israelis and Britons went in that we started hearing stories of the ground and 3rd floors being under special forces control.

And then Ops control started shifting. and instead of advancing on the militants somebody somewhere thought this is the work of Rangers/Paramilitary. Who had to be prepared and flown in from Gilgil, as Lang'ata brought the infantry. The Recce squad meanwhile went back to Ruiru.
So the entire command ops had to shift from one special force on the ground to the military.

THAT IS THE TIMELAPSE and the first misstep..

Yes..There were 5 boys in there ready to die. That makes them dangerous. But at the point of being cornered they would not have sustained a fight with the ammunition they were carrying at the time..

the change of command from RECCE/RDU allowed the militants to get to their cache and sustain a fight for 3 nights....
I'm proud of our soldiers, but their 'commanders' were not intelligent at all in planning and executing this thing.

in the meantime the KDF burnt a parking lot.. and managed to bring down 3 floors.. unless you want to tell me the 5 militants, bearing in mind one had to be watching the hostages, managed to park enough explosives to bring down 3 floors.. and that means planting explosives in very specific places, the pillars..carrying such explosives amidst keeping a whole platoon busy, must be quite a commando squad for thugs, not just one time suicide mission Al Shabaab boys.

The main reason for a special force deployment is to minimise human casualty and then any other destruction while eliminating the enemy...

Where are the hostages or should i ask.. are there any missing person?
If we only had militants in there and no hostage then for heavens sake, let them rot in there alone. I would have been proud of telling them to keep the floor to themselves.
But we still have missing persons, a burnt out parking lot with cars and a collapsed floor..and 5 dead teenagers to show for it.

So my dear friends, call me anything. But i know what im asking here. it shall be a subject of study for other special Op teams in EA

@poundfoolish, there is some truth to this from apparent and anonymous sources involved in the operations. These are questions to be asked at the right time..