Gunmen on motorbikes have attacked at least two hotels in the central Malian town of Sevare, witnesses have told the BBC.
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“The toll has increased and now there are seven dead, including four Malian soldiers, two terrorists and one white foreigner”.
3 Russian pilots were believed to have been kidnapped during the attack, the Reuters news agency reported.
An unnamed UN source said that the attackers remained in the hotel and that gunfire continued to be heard three hours after the initial assault.
Moussa Bah, the owner of a hotel nearby, said he was told by military personnel that several people have been killed, including jihadists and soldiers. “I see the smoke from the hotel”. Registered at the hotel were at least five foreigners – three South Africans, a French national, and a Ukrainian.
AQIM was among several jihadist groups that took control of Mali’s north in 2012 before being ousted by a French-led military operation launched in January 2013.
Residents in the area are hiding in their homes.
In January 2013, French soldiers were deployed to Mali under the pretext of putting an end to the crisis in the West African country, a former colony of France. “The Malian army is retaliating and reinforcing their position”, she said.
The attack well south of the Saharan desert strongholds of Islamist militants highlights the threat posed by remnants of an al Qaeda-linked insurgency that appears to be stepping up its campaign against Malian and UN troops. And in late June, gunmen killed three troopers in a village close to the border with Mauritania, then the subsequent day briefly occupied a village close to the border with Ivory Coast.
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Suspected militants killed 11 soldiers in a raid on an army base near the ancient northern city of Timbuktu on Monday (Tuesday NZT).
