INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES

Al Shabaab, which wants to overthrow the weak, U.N.-backed Somali government and impose strict Islamic law, quickly said it was responsible. "We are behind the attack in Nairobi. The operation is going on," Abdiasis Abu Musab, the group's military operations spokesman, told Reuters by telephone in Somalia.

According to its website, 14 Riverside is home to local offices of international companies including Colgate Palmolive , Reckitt Benckiser, Pernod Ricard, Dow Chemical and SAP, as well as the dusitD2 hotel, part of Thai group Dusit Thani.

Kenya is a base for hundreds of diplomats, aid workers, businessmen and others operating around east Africa.

The Australian embassy is across the road from the compound.

"I just started hearing gunshots, and then started seeing people running away raising their hands up and some were entering the bank to hide for their lives," a woman working in a bank in the complex said, adding she heard two explosions.

Kenyan television featured appeals for blood from local hospitals and showed police cordoning off the route to ensure vehicles could move quickly. Red Cross ambulances ferried victims away.

Kenyan troops, concentrated in south Somalia, originally went into Somalia to try to create a buffer zone along the border. They are now part of an African Union peacekeeping force.

The attack took place as a Kenyan court prepares to sentence four men accused of aiding the Westgate mall attack.

Reuters