Man who survived 9/11 attacks perishes in Nairobi terror strike

Nairobi, Jan 17: He had got an extension of his life by more than 17 years but Jason Spindler could not make it beyond January 15 when a horrific terror attack took place in a hotel in Kenya.

Spindler, a 40-year-old American business investment adviser from Houston, had survived the attacks that took place in the US on September 11, 2001, but he eventually died in another terror attack in another continent. The news of his death was confirmed by the company he set up, on Wednesday, January 15.

At least 21 people were killed in the attack in Nairobi that lasted hours and ending on Wednesday morning, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said. Armed men barged into the DusitD2 hotel compound and carried out the bloodbath.

Splinder, a former Peace Corps member, was the founder, CEO and MD of I-DEV International, a strategy and investment advisory company that tries to grow businesses in emerging markets. On the fateful day in September 2001, he was at the World Trade Center when planes hijacked by terrorists hit the two towers, demolishing them.

Splinder's mother Sarah Spindler told NBC News on Tuesday night that her son "was trying to make positive change in the third world in emerging markets."

Splinder was a business graduate from the University of Texas who received a doctoral law degree at the New York University and had served in the US Peace Corps in northern Peru.