BAMAKO // Extremist gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital on Friday, firing automatic weapons and seizing more than 100 guests and staff in a hostage-taking that left at least 27 people dead.
Special forces carried out a dramatic floor-by-floor rescue at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, eventually ending the siege about nine hours after it had begun.
An extremist group led by former Al Qaeda commander Moktar Belmoktar claimed responsibility for the siege in the former French colony, which many in France saw as a new assault on their country’s interests a week after the Paris attacks that left 130 people dead.
However, Belmoktar’s Al Mourabitoun group said it had worked with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to stage the attack, according to Mauritania’s Alakhbar news agency.
Malian television broadcast chaotic scenes from inside the hotel as police and other security personnel ushered bewildered and terrified guests along corridors and across the main lobby.
“They currently have no more hostages in their hands and forces are in the process of tracking them down,” Malian security minister Salif Traore said.
A UN official said 12 bodies had been found in the basement of the hotel and 15 on the second floor.
Malian security sources said French special forces were “participating in operations alongside Malians”.
Two of the gunmen had been killed, according to a Malian military source.
“The hostage-taking is over. We are in the process of securing the hotel,” the source said, as civil protection officers removed the victims in orange body bags.
Two US special forces troops who were at the nearby US embassy for meetings assisted in the rescue of six Americans.
The palatial 190-room Radisson, regarded as one of west Africa’s best hotels, attracts entrepreneurs, tourists and government officials from across the world.
Foreign guests described seeing a light-skinned man lying dead on the floor as they escaped early on.
Witnesses reported about a dozen assailants, while security sources spoke of two or three “jihadist” attackers.
A paramedic said three security guards had been wounded while a police officer who had been shot was seen being taken away by security forces.
The attackers are believed to have entered the hotel about 7am GMT at the same time as a car with diplomatic plates, while many guests were still in their rooms.
A Belgian regional assembly official, in Mali for a convention, was among those killed, the parliament said.
India said 20 of its nationals were among the hostages rescued, while China’s official Xinhua news agency said at least seven Chinese were involved in the hostage-taking.
Twelve Air France employees were in a “safe place”, the company announced, while seven Turkish Airlines crew members were freed.
Seven Algerians and two Germans were also freed while the status of four Belgian guests remains unclear.
Malian soldiers, police and special forces were at the scene as a security perimeter was set up, along with members of the UN’s Minusma peacekeeping force in Mali and the French troops fighting extremists in west Africa under Operation Barkhane.
Paris dispatched about 40 officers from an elite French unit of paramilitary police specialised in hostage situations.
France has more than 1,000 troops in its former colony, a key battleground of Operation Barkhane, a counterterror mission spanning five countries in Africa’s restive Sahel region.
The Malian president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was in Chad for a summit of regional leaders, cut short his trip to fly home.
Questions were raised over security at the hotel, with one regular guest, a French consultant, saying metal detectors were not always used on cars entering the compound.
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 killed in an assault on a Bamako restaurant in March, the first such incident in the capital targeting westerners.
Extremist groups have waged attacks in Mali despite a June peace deal between former Tuareg rebels in the north and rival pro-government armed groups.
The north fell under the control of Tuareg rebels and extremist groups linked to Al Qaeda in mid-2012.
The extremists sidelined the Tuareg to take sole control but were largely ousted by a French-led military operation launched in January 2013.
They have since launched sporadic attacks from desert hideouts and large swathes of Mali remain beyond the control of government and foreign forces.
In a recording authenticated by Malian authorities this week, an extremist leader in Mali denounced the peace deal and called for further attacks against France.
* Agence France-Presse, with additional reporting by Associated Press and Reuters
