Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed, interviewed by US public broadcaster PBS on Monday, was asked about reports Americans and Britons were among those to blame for the carnage.

"Yes," Mohamed said. "From the information that we have, two or three Americans, and I think so far I have heard of one Brit."

The Briton was a woman, the minister said.

"Woman. Woman. And she has, I think, done this many times before," she added.

"The Americans, from the information we have, are young men, about between maybe 18 and 19," she said, adding they were of Somali or Arab origin but "lived in the US, 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 added.

Meanwhile, the Kenyan interior ministry announced that troops were "in control" of Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall, with all the hostages trapped by al-Shebaab militants believed to have been freed.

A government spokesman told AFP the three-day-long siege, in which the attackers massacred at least 62 shoppers and staff, was close to being declared over. He said special forces combing the building were no longer encountering any resistance.

Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents have claimed the attack, which began Saturday, when the gunmen marched into the Israel-sponsored complex, firing grenades and automatic weapons and sending panicked shoppers scrambling for their lives.

NTJ/BA