Mali in mourning after at least 21 killed in hotel attack

Mali in mourning after at least 21 killed in hotel attack

Mali in mourning after at least 21 killed in hotel attack

Mali on Saturday began three days of
national mourning and declared a state
of emergency after a nine-hour siege by
jihadist gunmen at a top hotel in the
capital left 21 people dead.
The assault, claimed by Al-Qaeda
affiliate the Al-Murabitoun group led by
notorious one-eyed Algerian militant
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, ended after Malian
and international troops stormed the
luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako.
The attack came as fears mount over
terrorist threats a week after devastating
attacks in Paris that killed 130 people
claimed by the Islamic State group,
which also said it had downed a Russian
passenger jet in Egypt weeks before.
The Malian government declared a 10-
day nationwide state of emergency from
midnight on Friday over the assault and
called three days of mourning for the
victims, who included several Russians,
three Chinese, an American and a
Belgian.
“Terror will not win” and “long live
Mali, terrorism shall not pass,” President
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said in a
televised address, revising an earlier
death toll to 21.
Malian security sources, who had
reported a higher toll, said more than
100 people were taken hostage in the
raid while at least three “terrorists” were
killed or blew themselves up.
US President Barack Obama condemned
the “appalling” attack, adding that “this
barbarity only stiffens our resolve to
meet this challenge” of extremist
violence.
Mali has been torn apart by unrest since
the north fell under the control of
jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in
2012.
The Islamists were largely ousted by a
French-led military operation launched
the following year, but large swathes of
Mali remain lawless.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also
condemned Friday’s “horrific terrorist
attack,” suggesting the violence was
aimed at destroying peace efforts in the
country.
– Nine-hour seige –
The assault began around 0700 GMT on
Friday, when gunmen pulled up at the
hotel and starting shooting their way
inside, taking guests and staff hostage.
Malian television broadcast chaotic
scenes from inside the building as police
and other security personnel ushered
bewildered guests along corridors to
safety.
Special forces — including Malian,
French and two US soldiers who were
also in the area — staged a dramatic
floor-by-floor rescue, ending the siege
after about nine hours.
In an audio recording broadcast by
Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television,
Belmokhtar’s group claimed
responsibility.
“We the Murabitoun, with the
participation of our brothers from Al-
Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, claim the
hostage-taking operation at the Radisson
hotel,” a man’s voice said.
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.
The jihadist is also accused of being the
ring-leader of an attack on a gas plant in
Algeria in 2013, in which around 40
mostly Western hostages were killed.
– Attackers ‘spoke English’ –
The palatial 190-room Radisson,
regarded as one of west Africa’s best
hotels, is a favourite with entrepreneurs,
tourists and government officials from
across the world.
Witnesses talked of around a dozen
armed assailants, but the Malian
military source reported the deaths of
three “terrorists who were shot or blew
themselves up”, adding that the total
number of gunmen was not more than
four.
Guinean singer Sekouba Bambino
Diabate, who was among the survivors,
told AFP the gunmen spoke English
among themselves.
“They were firing inside the hotel, in the
corridors,” Diabate said.
A paramedic said three security guards
had been wounded while an AFP
correspondent saw a police officer, who
had been shot, being evacuated by
security forces.
Malian soldiers, police and special forces
were at the scene soon after the attack
began, along with members of the UN’s
MINUSMA peacekeeping force in Mali
and French troops deployed in west
Africa under Operation Barkhane.
Several Russians were among the dead,
ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
said on Saturday, though she did not
immediately specify how many.
China’s President Xi Jinping “strongly
condemned” the attack which left three
Chinese nationals dead.
A senior US State Department official
confirmed a US citizen was among the
victims, with another dozen Americans
surviving the attack, while a Belgian
regional assembly said one of its officials
was also killed.
France has more than 1,000 troops in its
former colony, a key battleground of the
Barkhane counter-terror mission
spanning five countries in Africa’s
restive Sahel region.
The attack follows a hotel siege in August
in the central Mali town of Sevare in
which five UN workers were killed along
with four soldiers and four attackers.
Five people, including a French citizen
and a Belgian, were also killed in an
assault on a Bamako restaurant in
March, the first of its kind in the city.

Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, Mali (in
the background), where scores of people
were killed and about 170 taken as
hostages by jihadist gunmen …
yesterday. PHOTO: AFP