President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Tuesday that Kenya had defeated the militants who had attacked a Nairobi shopping mall and were held out there for four days.
The raid killed at least 67 civilians and security personnel, with more bodies still to be recovered. Five militants were killed and 11 were now in custody, Kenyatta said.
"As a nation our head is bloodied but unbowed," he said in a televised address. "We have ashamed and defeated our attackers."
Meanwhile, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday vowed to pursue his own crackdown on Islamist extremists following the assault at the Westgate mall in Kenya.
"The reign of terror anywhere in the world is an assault on our collective humanity," Jonathan told the UN General Assembly.
'Dastardly terrorist attack'
Condemning the "dastardly terrorist attack" by Somalia's al-Shebab militants against Nairobi's Westgate mall, Jonathan said: "We must stand together to win this war together."
Jonathan said that Nigeria also faced a "challenge to national stability" in reference to Boko Haram, an Islamist movement whose insurgency in Africa's most populous country has left more than 3 600 people dead since 2009.
"We will spare no effort in addressing this menace. We are therefore confronting it with every resource," Jonathan said.
Jonathan insisted that Nigerian forces were also showing "due regard for fundamental human rights".
Human rights groups have accused Nigerian forces of major abuses against civilians.
Nigeria's human rights commission is investigating allegations that security agents shot dead eight unarmed squatters in the capital Abuja on Friday in the guise of fighting Boko Haram. – Reuters; AFP