Updated: Mali hotel attack – ‘No more hostages’ after special forces raid – BBC
Officials say suspected Islamist gunmen who stormed a hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako, have "no more hostages". The Radisson Blu Hotel was stormed by special forces after gunmen entered it and seized 170 people. At least
Officials say suspected Islamist gunmen who stormed a hotel in Mali’s capital, Bamako, have “no more hostages”.
The Radisson Blu Hotel was stormed by special forces after gunmen entered it and seized 170 people. At least 30 of the hostages are known to have escaped.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its offshoot al-Murabitoun said they carried out the attack, according to an agency used by jihadists in the region.
At least 18 people have died and two soldiers wounded.
One of those killed was Geoffrey Dieudonne, a member of parliament in Belgium’s Wallonia region.
A journalist in the lobby of the hotel told the BBC that hostages were leaving the hotel. It is not clear how many survived.
The US-owned hotel is popular with foreign businesses and airline crews.
Eyewitnesses said the gunmen had entered the hotel shooting and shouting “God is great!” in Arabic.
Before special forces stormed the building, a security source told Reuters that some hostages who were able to recite verses of the Koran were being freed.
Mali’s presidency has tweeted (in French) thanking the security forces and friendly countries for their support in responding to the attacks.
US special forces had helped in the hostage rescue operation. French special forces were also dispatched to the scene.
Malian security forces have been working their way up the building to where the gunmen were reportedly entrenched.
There is as yet no established link with the attacks in Paris one week ago that killed 130 people.
Bimbina November 20, 2015
what is wrong with these people? what do they teach them at home, schools and their religious institutions? May God protect us from hating ourselves and others?
Berhe Tenesea November 20, 2015
This is terrible,when innocent people are killed.
AHMED SALEH November 21, 2015
People cling with their hatred because if hate gone they can’t
deal with the pain inside of them . There is no any lesson that
can convince us that violence and terror brought ending solution
in world history except for access to our own disastrous outcome
absent of ways how to exit .
A country with conflicts based in religion and ethnicity , every
involved actor ended up looser . Lebanon, Somalia , Rwanda and
Yugoslavia are few examples people refused to learn a lesson .
Keren November 21, 2015
This is the new normal in the present Arab and Islamic world. Badly educated elites with stunted brains tend to hate themselves and anything else. These are the rabid dogs who will destroy, bomb, stone, behead, whip and bite anything they dislike.
One Frenchman described these less evolved human creatures, philosophically: “I kill, therefore, I am.”
Berhe Tenesea November 21, 2015
Taking innocent hostages is meaningless, and if they are unhappy with the way they are ruled, they have to fight their enemies head on like men did on the old days.