In the aftermath of an Islamist terrorist attack last week on a Radisson hotel in Bamako, Mali, and multiple attacks in Paris and Beirut before that, security is front of mind for politicians and the public in the U.S.
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In 2013, the French pushed the Islamic extremists out of cities and towns, though they continue to carry out attacks on United Nations peacekeepers.
The news comes on the beginning of a three day period of national mourning for the victims which is also being respected in neighbouring Senegal, Mauritania and Guinea. At the time of the attack a group of Chinese investors from the China Railway Company building the railway from Bamako to Dakar were staying at the hotel.
The group said Sunday there were only two attackers and suggested they were Malian.
In the absence of clear information, analysts have speculated on other possible motives, including a desire to disrupt Mali’s fragile local peace process or a wish by al-Qaida to demonstrate its relevance amid high-profile attacks by its rival, the Islamic State group.
The dead in the hotel attack included a 41-year-old American development worker, six Russian plane crew from a cargo company, and three senior executives from the powerful state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation, officials said.
Gunmen went on the rampage at the Radisson Blu hotel from early morning on Friday, shooting in the corridors and taking 170 guests and staff hostage.
Malian security forces were hunting “more than three” suspects after a brazen assault on a luxury hotel in the capital that killed 20 people plus two assailants, an army commander said Saturday.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Belmokhtar one of the world’s most wanted men was indeed “likely” the brains behind the assault.
Guinean singer Sekouba Bambino Diabate, who was among the survivors, told the media the gunmen spoke English among themselves.
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Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda seized Mali’s desert north in 2012 following a separatist uprising but were scattered by a French military operation the following year. France now has about 1,000 troops stationed in Mali, a former colony, as part of a counterterrorism effort.
