Kenyan forces hunted for gunmen who stormed an upmarket hotel and office complex in the capital, reportedly killing at least six people.The gunmen are believed to have opened fire to citizens and hurled grenades at a lobby injuring more.
The AK-47 packs a terrible punch, firing a 7.62mm round which is considerably heavier than the British Army’s standard 5.56mm bullet.
No firearm of any kind has killed more people – or been more widely embraced as a symbol – than the AK-47 Kalashnikov. Emblazoned on the national flag of Mozambique and on the banners of Hizbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the AK-47 has become the weapon of choice for guerrillas, terrorists and rebels across the world.
Most people associate the AK-47 with tyrannical terrorists, depraved drug cartels and rabid rebels.
Indeed, the high profile use of AK-47 in the Garissa attack shooting and the Westgate attack by the Al-Shabab reinforces this link.
In the early years after 1998 US embassy bombing in Nairobi and the 9/11 the suicide belt, the car bomb and the homemade explosive device were the weapons of choice for jihadis: hidden, brutal and hard to counter.
But as 2015 heaves to a close, its atrocities littered across the calendar – Charlie Hebdo,Garissa, Westgate ,14 Riverside Drive in Nairobi, Tunis, Copenhagen and Paris – it is the AK-47 that has come to the fore.
Across East Africa more terrorist attacks have been carried out with Kalashnikov-type assault rifles than with any other device. In the 13 November Paris attacks, suicide bombers killed few but gunmen killed many. Further afield, in Tunisia and Kenya, it was also automatic weapons that did the damage.
When police use the word Kalashnikov to describe weapons they have seized, they are referring to a legendary brand that has had multiple reincarnations.
Designed by the Soviet general Mikhail Kalashnikov, the first model of the Kalashnikov gun, or AK-47, was introduced into active service in the Soviet army in 1948.
Today, however, the name applies to 200 types of AK-pattern assault rifles.
They are manufactured – legitimately, for international trade – in more than 30 countries, with China leading the way.
But legal weapons can quickly become illicit contraband. China exports principally to African states. There, they can end up on the illicit market either because underpaid soldiers sell them on, or because states supply rebel forces in other countries.
A single lever on the right-hand side of the stock controls how the weapon is used. Push the lever one click down and the AK-47 becomes a machine-gun, firing automatic bursts. Two clicks and the rifle fires a single shot at a time. Leave the lever in place and it makes the gun safe, preventing it from discharging if the trigger is pulled by accident.
Claudia Ochoa Felix, with her pink AK-47 assault rifle called her the ‘Black Widow Maker’, Claudia is believed to have taken over as the head of Mexico’s deadliest drug Mafia gangs
Incidentally, those are the only rules that any terrorist or child soldier needs to know before taking up the AK-47. The rest will come with practice.