“Everything is being done to follow the tracks” of the suspects, the source said, declining to give further details to avoid compromising the investigation.
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The Malian government declared a 10-day nationwide state of emergency from midnight on Friday over the assault and called three days of mourning for the victims, who included several Russians, three Chinese, an American and a Belgian.
Seven others were injured in Radisson Blu Hotel in the Malian capital on Friday when gunmen held 130 people hostage.
The soldiers stormed the hotel to end a daylong siege that started when gunmen raided the hotel after attacking a military site nearby, witnesses said.
In an audio recording broadcast by Al Jazeera television, Belmokhtar’s group claimed responsibility.
One of the freed hostages, a singer from Guinea, said he heard attackers in the next room speaking English.
Islamist fighters, a few with links to Al-Qaeda, occupied Northern Mali for most of 2012 before they were ousted by an ongoing French-led military operation launched in January 2013.
Operation Barkhane spans five countries, and primarily consists of counter-terrorism maneuvers against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Mourabitoun and Ansar Dine.
Meanwhile, Algerian security forces, which have been on high alert since the Paris terrorist attacks last week, say they have captured three militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS).
A few guests also have been able to escape the hotel.
“It’s all happening on the seventh floor, jihadists are firing in the corridor”, a security source told AFP earlier. A police officer, who had been shot, was also seen being evacuated by security forces.
The United Nations has expressed concern that this latest attack was specifically engineered to make it harder to broker peace between Mali’s government and the rebel factions that oppose it. At least one of the victims, The NY Times confirms, was an American citizen.
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“We should yet again stand firm and show our solidarity with a friendly country, Mali”, said French President Francois Hollande.
