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Eyewitnesses saw armed men in black, their heads covered in scarves, entering the Westgate shopping centre on Saturday afternoon
At least 59 people were killed and 175 injured in Saturday's attack on a Nairobi shopping centre, a Kenyan government minister has said.
Joe Lenku said 1,000 people had managed to escape from the Westgate centre after the assault by suspected al-Shabab militants.
He added that between 10 to 15 attackers were still in the building.
It is not known how many civilians remain trapped there - either as hostages or hiding from the militants.
At the scene
Will Ross BBC News, Nairobi
It is extremely tense here as people wait to learn the full horror of this attack. That will only be known once the entire building has been secured.
Trucks full of Kenyan soldiers have been driving towards the mall. Eyewitnesses saw some of those troops entering the building in an effort to end this siege.
But with the government confirming that hostages are still being held, any move will carry great risk. Here, just 200m from the shopping mall, the Red Cross has set up a medical centre to help the injured, including soldiers, who are being rushed out in ambulances. Relatives are registering the names of their missing loved ones and waiting anxiously for news.
An attack by al-Shabab had long been feared. This shopping centre was considered a prime target partly because it is frequented by many different nationalities. This horrific attack has sent this city into shock.
There is a heavy military presence both in and around the shopping centre, and sporadic gunfire can be heard from inside.
There are reports that the gunmen are currently holed up in a supermarket.
The Somali militant group al-Shabab says it carried out the attack on the upmarket shopping centre in response to Kenyan military operations in Somalia.
There are about 4,000 Kenyan troops in the south of Somalia, where they have been fighting the militants since 2011.
'Watching and monitoring'Kenyan officials said "major operations" were under way with police and soldiers preparing an apparent bid to bring an end to the stand-off.
But Joe Lenku, Kenya's interior minister, stressed that the operation was "very, very delicate".
"The priority is to save as many lives as possible,'' he said.
The BBC's Will Ross at the scene said it would be extremely difficult for the military do a quick raid on the building because of all the people inside.
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Minister Joe Lenku says the operation at the shopping centre is "very very delicate"
Al-Shabab has claimed there are at least 36 hostages, but this cannot be independently confirmed and there are also likely to be people hiding away from the attackers.
"We're not going to know the full extent of this attack until the military is back in control," our correspondent says.
Meanwhile, people are still escaping from the building.
Cecile Ndwiga got out on Sunday morning, saying she had been hiding under a vehicle in the basement car park but could not leave earlier because "the shootout was all over - left, right".
The authorities have asked journalists to exercise caution when reporting military developments because the gunmen might be monitoring the media.
"Hostiles suspected to have access to the internet," the Disaster Operation Centre in Nairobi posted on Twitter.
"Reports on personnel movement and progress will not be posted for fear of compromising strategy."
The authorities are also appealing for Kenyans to donate blood - and big queues have formed at a Nairobi donation centre.
The attack began at about 12:00 local time (09:00 GMT) on Saturday, when the militants entered the Westgate centre, throwing grenades and firing automatic weapons. A children's day event was being held at the time - children are among those reported killed.
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Manager: "Bullets were running over my head...I crawled into my office and I locked myself inside."
Witnesses report seeing many bodies strewn round tables of unfinished fast food - with pop music left playing in the background.
Some witnesses said the militants told Muslims to leave and said non-Muslims would be targeted.
"They came and said: 'If you are Muslim, stand up. We've come to rescue you'," said Elijah Lamau.
He said the Muslims left with their hands up, and then the gunmen shot two people.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says a security source told him that at least one of the attackers was a woman who appeared to have a leadership role.
Foreigners among deadIn a televised address on Saturday evening, Mr Kenyatta said: "We shall hunt down the perpetrators. We shall get to them and we shall punish them for this heinous crime."
He said he had "personally lost family members in the Westgate attack".
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said there would "undoubtedly" be British nationals caught up in Saturday's events, while the US State Department said it had reports that American citizens were injured in what it called "a senseless act of violence".
Analysis
Kenya has about 4,000 troops in southern Somalia, as part of a larger African Union (AU) force of 17,000 soldiers.
The AU force - known as Amisom - attacks al-Shabab where it can. Al-Shabab responds by mounting hit and run attacks. It says the members of Amisom are invaders stopping its legitimate vision of creating an Islamic state.
Here in Kismayo, for example, the airport comes under regular attack by small arms fire suspected to come from al-Shabab positions.
Two French citizens and two Canadians, including a diplomat, are also among the dead.
Prominent Ghanian poet Kofi Awoonor - who was was attending a literary festival in Nairobi - also died, as has a Chinese woman.
Security experts are reported to have warned that the Israeli-owned complex was in danger of being subjected to a terror attack.
Al-Shabab, which is part of the al-Qaeda network, has repeatedly threatened attacks on Kenyan soil if Nairobi did not pull its troops out of Somalia.
The BBC's Mark Doyle, who is embedded with the African Union (AU) mission in Somalia, says AU troops attack al-Shabab where they can.
Al-Shabab believes the AU forces are invaders stopping their legitimate vision of creating an Islamic state - and the group responds by mounting hit-and-run attacks, our correspondent says.
This is one of the worst incidents in Kenya since the attack on the US embassy in August 1998.
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Footage from inside the mall shows the aftermath of the shoot-out
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