Tha Mali attack was the latest in a series of deadly raids this year on high-profile targets in the country, which has battled Islamist rebels based in its desert north for years.
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Gunmen entered the hotel on Friday morning, shooting and driving their vehicle through a security barrier, one eyewitness said.
“I asked everyone to go into the hallway and then suddenly we heard the footsteps of the jihadis behind us and there was total panic and people were running in every direction”, he said. Since then, Mali has seen periodic attacks such as the one in March this year, where armed assailants shot five people at a popular Bamako restaurant. Geneva, New York and Moscow didn’t shut down either.
At least one guest reported the attackers instructed him to recite verses from the Quran as proof of his Muslim faith before he was allowed to leave.
Russian warplanes carried out the heaviest airstrikes on Islamic State positions in eastern Syria since the war began on Friday, killing at least 36 people in at least 70 strikes. They were driven out by a French-led military operation, but violence has continued.
“They’ve penetrated inside the hotel”.
Video footage shows Malian security forces storming the Bamako hotel to end a siege by gunmen in which 19 people died.
“China will strengthen cooperation with global society to resolutely fight violent terrorist activities that hurt innocent lives, to maintain world peace and tranquility”, China Central Television quoted President Xi as saying.
Mali authorities say investigators are following “several leads” after 21 people were killed in an attack on a luxury hotel claimed by three Islamist militant groups.
Another Israeli citizen, who was not named, was rescued by security forces, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
Al-Mourabitoun was founded by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian who had left AQIM – and who, as NPR’s Tom Bowman reports, “was believed killed in a USA airstrike back in June”.
A Malian intelligence agent said a total of 13 foreigners were killed, including six Russians, three Chinese, two Belgians, an American and a Senegalese.
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Dead… Anita Datar, 41, had been working in Mali’s capital as a U.S. envoy for worldwide development firm Palladium. France has stationed 3,500 troops in northern Mali to try to restore stability after a rebellion in 2012 by ethnic Tuaregs that was later hijacked by jihadists linked to al Qaeda.
