From AFP via The Age

Warnings by Kenyan security forces of an impending attack just days before Somalia’s al-Shabab gunmen stormed a Nairobi mall killing at least 67 people last year were ignored, parliamentary investigations have reportedly found.

“There was general information on the impending terror attack on all the malls and other strategic Western interests, especially in Nairobi,” the parliamentary report read, according to Kenya’s Sunday Nation newspaper.

Warnings of an attack were made in August and again just 19 days before the September 21 attack on Westgate, when gunmen stormed the up-market mall hurling grenades and shooting shoppers and staff, the report notes.

Another security report, issued a year to the day before the Westgate siege began, specifically said al-Shabab was planning to attack the partly Israeli-owned complex.

“Another intelligence briefing in February 2013 warned of attacks like those that happened in Mumbai in late 2008, where the operatives storm a building with guns and grenades and probably hold hostages,” the report is quoted as saying.

“It is unclear what measures were put in place to prevent the attacks.”

Read more at The Age