In a recording broadcast by Al-Jazeera, a spokesman identified them as Abdelhakim al-Ansari and Moez al-Ansari, with the term “al-Ansari” indicating they were indigenous jihadists.
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Meanwhile, Mali has begun three days of national mourning following the attack.
The risks are high of similar attacks in neighbouring countries, in particular, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger.
More than 130 hotel guests and staff were freed when Malian special forces, French special forces and off-duty USA servicemen stormed the hotel on Friday to break the siege.
The message said the men died after mounting “stiff resistance” and called for further “resistance to the aggression of crusaders on the mujahideen of Mali”.
Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita returns to his auto after addressing reporters outside the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, November 21, 2015.
The Al Murabitoun group, an Al Qaeda affiliate led by notorious one-eyed Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has claimed responsibility for the attack.
All the Canadians known to have been in the hotel in Mali that was stormed by Islamic extremists are safe, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion said Friday.
Now, the Macina Liberation Front (MLF) which has been blamed for attacks in southern Mali, has said its fighters carried it out.
Maj. Modibo Nama Traore said Sunday that the gunmen had grenades and other explosives but did not use them in the course of the more than seven-hour siege that killed 19 people. The group’s statement said attacks would continue until the government ended its “aggression against our people in the north and the center of Mali”. The claim, reported Sunday by French media, underscores the shifting alliances and memberships of the extremist groups operating in Mali and nearby countries.
Mali began a three-day mourning period with flags flying at half-staff on Monday for victims of the assault on a luxury hotel full of foreigners, a day after a dueling claim of responsibility emerged. It has close ties with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, and it was excluded from the peace negotiations between the government and northern rebel groups.
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The Islamists were largely ousted by a French-led military operation launched the following year but large swathes of Mali remain lawless.
