The United States has not confirmed that any Americans were involved in the Kenyan mall attack that left at least 70 people dead, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday.
"At this point, we don't have any verification that any Americans have been involved in the attacks as attackers,” Holder said at a meeting with reporters at the Justice Department on Wednesday, according to The Hill.
On Monday, Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said in an interview with PBS that “two or three” Americans were among the attackers who carried out the Nairobi mall attack, as well as a British woman.
“The Americans, from the information we have, are young men, about between maybe 18 and 19,” Mohamed said.
She added that the Americans involved were “of Somali origin or Arab origin, but that lived in the U.S., in Minnesota and one other place.”
“So, basically, look, that just was to underline, I think, the global nature of this war that we're fighting,” Mohamed said.
Al-Shabaab, a Somali-based al Qaeda affiliate, has taken responsibility for the attack. The group is known for its active recruitment of American and British citizens.
Mohamed’s remarks appeared to verify claims by Al-Shabaab that there were American terrorists among those who attacked the mall.
The group had tweeted a series of names, including those of Americans it said were involved in the attack, before it was suspended by the Twitter.
In a separate interview with Al-Jazeera, Mohamed saidthat the Al-Qaeda terror group was responsible for the attack, saying she believed Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, was not acting alone and that the attack was part of an international terrorism campaign.
Kenya said on Wednesday that Israel was helping it with a forensic investigation into the weekend attack on a Nairobi shopping mall.
The country’s interior minister, Joseph ole Lenku, told reporters that the United States and Britain were also taking part in the investigation.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)