The latest on the attack on a hotel in the Malian capital of Bamako.
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Gunmen went on a shooting rampage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital Bamako on Friday, seizing 170 guests and staff in an ongoing hostage-taking, the hotel chain said.
More than 150 people were originally taken hostage by the attackers.
Military commander Modibo Naman Traore said 10 gunmen stormed the hotel shouting “Allahu Akbar” – “God is great” in Arabic – before firing on the guards and taking hostages. Ambulances were seen rushing to the hotel as a military helicopter flew overhead.
Automatic weapons fire could be heard from outside the 190-room hotel in the city-center, where security forces have set up a security cordon, an AFP journalist said.
State television showed footage of troops in camouflage fatigues wielding AK47s in the lobby of the hotel, one of the country’s smartest hotels.
Malian Defense Ministry increased the death toll to five people, including three hostages and two security forces.
Malian soldiers, police and special forces were on the scene as a security perimeter was set up, along with members of the UN’s MINUSMA peacekeeping force in Mali and the French troops fighting jihadists in west Africa under Operation Barkhane.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls admitted yesterday that French authorities did not know how he had managed to get into the country, when he was under an global arrest warrant. The special forces were continuing their operation to end the standoff.
Earlier, the hotel’s owner, the Rezidor Hotel Group, said 138 people were still inside, with employees of the French and Turkish national airlines as well as Chinese among known to be those staying there.
The European Commission also called for the establishment of an EU-wide intelligence agency in the wake of the Paris massacre, the deadliest on European soil since the Madrid train attacks that killed about 200 people in 2004. “According to the current information, there are 20 Indians staying in the hotel”.
Air France has cancelled its Paris-Bamako flight.
An extremist group that two years ago split from al-Qaida’s North Africa branch and led by Moktar Belmoktar claimed responsibility for the attack, in a recorded statement carried by Al-Jazeera.
All United States citizens were asked “to shelter in place” and “encouraged to contact their families”.
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has cut short his trip to Chad and was headed back to Mali, a country of 14.5 million people where Islam is the dominant religion. In March masked gunmen shot up a restaurant in Bamako that is popular with foreigners, killing five people.
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A handful of jihadi groups seized the northern half of Mali, a former French colony, in 2012 and were ousted from cities and towns by a French military intervention.
