The Malian government has declared a 10-day nationwide state of emergency over the assault and President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has also declared three days of mourning for the victims.
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Investigators in Mali were on Saturday hunting at least three people suspected of links to the attacks.
More than 100 other hostages were rescued by Malian forces at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako.
United Nations spokesman Olivier Salgado has confirmed to CNN that at least 21 people were killed in Friday’s attack.
Both China and Russian state media have reported that Chinese and Russian nationals are believed to have been killed.
The exact number of attackers remains unknown, with the figures ranging between two and thirteen.
Those who died “were shot by gunmen in the restaurant literally in the first minutes of the terrorist attack on the hotel”, the ministry said. A statement from Belmoktar’s group, al-Mourabitounes (The Sentinels), and carried by Al-Jazeera also described coordination with a group called “Sahara Emirate”, affiliated with al-Qaeda.
A foreign security source told AFP on condition of anonymity that French special forces from neighbouring Burkina Faso were in the hotel and “participating in operations alongside Malians”.
Six Russians were killed during the attack, which was claimed by Jihadist Al-Murabitoun extremist group based in northern Mali. A French-led military intervention in 2013 drove the extremists from the main cities.
The family of the Israeli educator killed in a terror attack in Mali on Friday said it was “stunned” by his sudden death at the hands of Islamist gunmen in the African country.
Chinese officials say the country faces a severe threat from Islamist separatists in its western Xinjiang region, where violence has left hundreds dead over the past three years.
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The attack may have been motivated by a desire to disrupt a fragile local peace process that has made progress in recent months, Jean-Herve Jezequel, an analyst for the global Crisis Group, said in an interview posted to the group’s website Friday night. United States forces were also involved in helping to free the hostages.
