DETAILS OF HORROR AND TORTURE FROM WESTGATE ATTACK TOLD BY SOLDIERS

Soldiers told of the horrific torture meted out by terrorists in the Nairobi mall massacre yesterday with claims hostages were dismembered, had their eyes gouged out and were left hanging from hooks in the ceiling.
Men were said to have been castrated and had fingers removed with pliers before being blinded and hanged.
Children were found dead in the food court fridges with knives still embedded in their bodies, it was claimed. 

Most of the defeated terrorists, meanwhile, were reportedly discovered ‘burnt to ashes’, set alight by the last extremist standing to try to protect their identities.
The horrifying details came yesterday as the first pictures emerged from within the wreckage of the building, showing piles of bodies left strewn across the floor.
A third of the mall was destroyed in the battle between terrorists and Kenyan troops. 

Lying in the rubble are feared to be the bodies of as many as 71 civilians who have been declared missing by the Kenyan Red Cross.
With detectives, including the FBI and the Metropolitan Police, still unable to reach the wrecked part of the mall for fear of setting off explosives, it could take up to a week to determine exactly who is still inside.

Yesterday, soldiers and doctors who were among the first people into the mall after it was reclaimed on Tuesday, spoke of the horrifying scenes inside.
‘You find people with hooks hanging from the roof,’ said one Kenyan doctor, who asked not to be named.
‘They removed eyes, ears, nose. They get your hand and sharpen it like a pencil then they tell you to write your name with the blood. 
‘They drive knives inside a child’s body.
'Actually if you look at all the bodies, unless those ones that were escaping, fingers are cut by pliers, the noses are ripped by pliers. Here it was pain.’
A soldier, who took pictures at a bread counter and at the ArtCaffe, said he was so traumatised by what he saw he has had to seek counselling.
Bomb disposal experts with sniffer dogs were yesterday painstakingly combing the part of the building still standing for explosives before clearing forensic officers, police and troops to search for bodies. 

Images also emerged yesterday revealing the true extent of the destruction caused to the centre during the four-day battle between Kenyan forces and Islamic militants.
The first pictures taken inside the site show a gaping hole in the mall's roof after three storeys collapsed when Kenyan soldiers fired rocket-propelled grenades inside the complex, knocking out a support column, a government official said.
Children's buggies are left abandoned just metres from the yawning pit, as cars hang precariously over the edge. Beneath many more vehicles lie on top of each other, smashed to pieces.
The collapse happened on Monday when government troops launched a massive assault on the mall where up to 150 people are thought to have been killed.
During the firefight, hostages reportedly had their throats slashed from ear to ear and were thrown screaming from third-floor balconies as the siege came to a bloody end. Forensics teams, still sifting through the mountains of rubble, fear many more bodies are yet to be found.
Shell-shocked Kenyan troops said the inside of the Israeli-run mall resembled a ‘scene from a horror movie’ with blood spattered everywhere and dead bodies strewn across the floor.

One soldier told the Daily Mirror: 'I have seen many bad things, but this will haunt me for the rest of my days.'
The main thrust of the operation began at 6am on Monday when troops and helicopters surrounded the building, but their efforts were hampered by an Al Shabaab sniper who managed to pin them back for nearly 24 hours.
As tear gas was used to try to flush him out, another terrorist reportedly blew himself up. It is believed the resulting fire may have killed dozens of shoppers in a supermarket. 
The following day, the soldiers were ordered to adopt a 'shoot to kill' policy and launched their final attack on the terror group on the roof of the mall at 5pm.
The mall was retaken about half an hour later.