A spokesman for al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based group that carried out the Kenyan mall attack that ended Tuesday, said in a statement that the group is hurt by reports in the media that women were among the attackers. “Dear members of the press,” the statement said. “We’ve been confronted with vile allegations that we sent women alongside men to savagely murder shoppers and employees at the Westgate shopping mall. This is patently untrue and we are shocked such lies are spread about us. We only use young, well-groomed men to kill innocent people. We ask any journalist who reported such defamatory rubbish to retract your statements, or you’ll face some type of cruel torture to your tongue and hands, and then you’ll be hacked to death with a machete by an honorable person with a penis.”