Another army spokesman also said that this time there was no doubt that it was over. Officials had earlier announced that five Malian soldiers were killed, two jihadis and a United Nations contractor, bringing the total death toll to 12.
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MINUSMA, the country’s UN peacekeeping operation, said an employee was among those killed in the hotel.
A Dutch man, Swede and South African were abducted from a hostel in Timbuktu in November 2011.
He was identified as Roelof Janse van Rensburg.
Koné, the defence ministry spokesman, said that French forces had backed the operation. The workers – two South Africans, one Russian and a Ukrainian – were able to avoid detection during the deadly events that left a dozen people dead.
Remnants of the extremists have staged attacks on UN peacekeepers and Malian forces, but Friday’s assault on a hotel popular with UN pilots marks a serious escalation.
MINUSMA said in a statement Friday that the gunmen originally attempted to attack a military site in the town, but moved onto the hotel after being pushed back by Malian soldiers.
In Washington, the White House strongly condemned the attack and expressed its condolences to the families of the victims. France also denounced “in the strongest possible terms” the siege and reiterated its support for the Malian security forces and MINUSMA “in the fight against terrorism”.
The siege started at around 7am (07:00 GMT) on Friday, according to the government.
Two attackers, one strapped with explosives, additionally died.
“It’s a troubling sign that the armed Islamist groups are intent on stepping up the pressure both on the Malian government and on the United Nations and French presence”, said Bruce Whitehouse, Mali expert and associate professor at Lehigh University.
The special forces of Malian along with the French soldiers help successfully seized the hotel at Mali today.
According to military sources, South African, French, Ukrainian and Russian citizens were in the hotel when the attack occurred. The attackers, whose number is yet unknown, stormed the Byblos hotel early on Friday in what Malian military sources described as an attempt to kidnap foreign hotel guests. At no point were they discovered by the terrorists in the hotel.
The army besieged the hotel after the attack in a bid to neutralize the gunmen and release the hostages. The body of an unidentified man was seen lying outside the building near a burnt-out van, pictures from the scene showed on Saturday.
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It is unclear which group was behind the hostage-taking but Islamist militants have claimed responsibility for other recent attacks in the south and centre of Mali.
