It also was not known if the attackers were included in the United Nations count of the dead.
Advertisement
Keita had been attending a security summit in Chad on Friday but returned to Mali and convened an emergency cabinet meeting.
China’s President Xi Jinping on Saturday “strongly condemned” the attack by armed jihadists on a hotel in Mali which left three Chinese nationals dead, according to a government statement, among at least 21 killed. But the operations were still ongoing and the hotel had not been totally cleared, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the operation was still under way.
It said that 12 Russians – all staff of the Volga-Dnepr freight airline – were caught up in yesterday’s hostage-taking in Bamako, but six were freed.
The foreign ministry said another Israeli national, whom it did not identify, had also been staying at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako but had escaped unharmed.
“Nowhere in the world is one safe from these barbarians from another time”, Keita said.
Images revealed that a few of the hostages leaving the resort were wounded. The statement from the Al-Mourabitoun (The Sentinels) group was carried by the Al-Jazeera network and said the assault was in cooperation with al-Qaida’s “Sahara Emirate”.
“This barbarity only stiffens our resolve to meet this challenge”, Obama said of the global terrorist threat.
‘The search has started and I can tell you that we are looking for more than three people at the moment, ‘ Malian army commander Maj Modibo Nama Traore said.
But speaking outside the luxury Radisson Blu hotel a day after it was attacked the president said that the country remained open for business.
France, the former colonial power in Mali, intervened in the country in January 2013, when al-Qaeda-linked militants threatened to march on Bamako after taking control of the north of the country.
Advertisement
The extremists were scattered from northern towns and cities, but the north remains insecure and militant attacks have extended farther south this year.
