And in August, 17 people were killed during an attack on a hotel in Sevare in central Mali, a few 600 km (375 miles) northeast of Bamako, that was claimed by the Sahara-based Islamist militant group al-Mourabitoun.
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The pictures aired on state television were the first indication that authorities were seeking accomplices to Friday’s attack on the Radisson Blu hotel that killed 20 people and ended when commandos stormed the building and killed two gunmen. Authorities are appealing for anyone who knew them to come forward with information about the gunmen.
The victims included six Russians, three Chinese, two Belgians, an American, an Israeli, a Senegalese and a member of the Malian special forces.
“We the Murabitoun, with the participation of our brothers from Al Qaeda in the Maghreb, claim the hostage-taking operation at the Radisson hotel”, a man’s voice said.
The group was also responsible for a shooting attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners in Bamako on March 7 this year, which killed five people and wounded nine others.
The group known as Al-Mourabitoun – or The Sentinels – identified the gunmen as Abdel Hakim Al-Ansari and Moadh Al-Ansari, a report posted Sunday by Al-Akhbar said.
The Massina Liberation Front, blamed for previous violence in southern Mali, yesterday became the third group to claim responsibility for the attack. One security source in Mali earlier said officials believed that the two dead gunmen had been speaking English during the attack.
Mali was under a state of emergency and three days of mourning were announced by President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who also clarified the death toll after Malian state television reported late on Friday that 27 were dead, along with three attackers.
“We are actively pursuing three suspects who might have been involved in Friday’s attack on the Radisson Blu hotel”, a Malian security official told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
France, Belgium, Canada and america are offering technical help with the investigation, he added.
The message stated the lads died after mounting “stiff resistance” and referred to as for additional “resistance to the aggression of crusaders on the mujahideen of Mali”.
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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. “On a regional degree we’d like reforms”, stated Boni Yayi, including that governments wanted to think about “the reinforcement of our intelligence capacities and border administration”.
