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A daily summary of global reports on security issues

The September terrorist attack that killed at least 67 people at the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya, has illuminated how unprepared that country was for a siege of its magnitude.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is new to such high-level political positions, little chatter was intercepted before the attack, and security guards at the mall were revealed to be low paid and under-trained.

Even more serious problems are reported by The New York Times:

The Los Angeles Times reports that closed circuit video has revealed a shocking timeline for the looting that Kenyan soldiers are alleged to have committed at the mall, as well:

As the retrospective analysis continues, DNA testing is underway to determine the identities of as many as 39 more victims, and the shaken expat community is attempting to put the attack in context, reports the Monitor:

Troubling allegations about an extra-judicial response by the government are now surfacing. In Kenya last August, the highway-side killing of alleged Al Shabab representative Aboud Rogo Mohammed touched off riots in the city of Mombasa. In the wake of the mall attack, that incident has found a grim echo – gunmen have shot dead Ibrahim "Rogo" Omar and three other people, reports the BBC.

Both killings are worrisome for those invested in the stability of Kenya: The perception that police are linked to these murders has the potential to provoke an ever-escalating Algerian Civil War-style cycle of terrorism and extra-judicial police response.

A list of those invested in the stability of Kenya looks like a list of most European nations and the United States. A European national (a German formerly named Andreas Martin Mueller, now Ahmed Khaled Mueller, who has been on the run for more than a year) and a British woman nicknamed "The White Widow" have been linked to the attack. Attackers recruited from the United States have also been connected to the incident, as the Monitor reported:

And one of the most prominent victims of the attack wasn't Kenyan – he was Kofi Awoonor, a renowned poet from Ghana.

The link to Somalia is strong and key to understanding the attack. The BBC referred to the two nations as "blood brothers." Kenyan forces fighting Al Shabab in Somalia are an integral part of the East African conflict between Islamic militants and secular governments, and as long as that tension remains, more attacks and counterattacks could follow.