A Malian intelligence agent said 13 foreigners were killed in the attack, including six Russians, three Chinese, two Belgians, an American and a Senegalese. One of those killed was an American citizen, the US State Department said without providing additional details.
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Security forces conducted room-by-room searches amid sporadic gunfire, news reports said. “Terrorism will not win”.
Senegal, Mauritania and Guinea are also observing the mourning.
Another Israeli citizen, who was not named, was rescued by security forces, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
The attackers had driven unchallenged into the hotel, opened fire at security guards and then took 170 people hostage. We mourn for the people killed in the terrorist attack on a hotel in Mali.
More than 130 hotel guests and staff were freed when Malian special forces, French special forces and off-duty U.S. servicemen stormed the hotel on Friday to break the siege. A spokesman told al-Jazeera two Malian gunmen had carried out the attack. “We are in constant contact with the authorities there and will share further information with you when we have it”. Inside the hotel, the assailants fired “at anything that moved”, according to one employee, who spoke with CNN. “And once again this barbarity only stiffens our resolve to meet this challenge”.
Earlier on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the attack, calling for a global collective cooperation to battle terrorism.
The Pope, who travels to Africa this week, said he was “appalled by this senseless violence” and hoped for “the conversion of hearts and the gift of peace”, in the troubled country.
The attack was claimed by al-Qaeda’s north-African affiliate al-Mourabitoun, led by the notorious one-eyed Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
Numerous specifics surrounding the attackers, including the number involved and their identities, remain unclear.
On Sunday, the Massina Liberation Front, which has been blamed for previous attacks in southern Mali, became the third group to claim responsibility for the siege.
While a peace accord was signed in June between the government and several rebel groups, the truce has been broken numerous times.
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“The attack was targeting the peace agreement”, said Sidi Brahim Ould Sidati, a representative of the Coordination of Azawad Movements, known by its French acronym CMA.
