At least 90 held hostage in hotel, 3 dead as US and Malian forces work to free captives
Al Qaeda-linked jihadists claimed responsibility for an ongoing and deadly hostage-taking at a hotel in Mali's capital Friday, as U.S. and Malian special forces worked to free at least 90 people who were still inside.
It was unclear whether the hostage situation was over Friday afternoon. Malian ministerial adviser Amadou Sangho told French media all remaining hostages at the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital, Bamako, were safe, but local media there said the attackers were still holding people inside the hotel.
Malian army commander Modibo Nama Traore told The Associated Press that at least one guest earlier reported that the attackers instructed him to recite verses from the Koran before he was allowed to leave the hotel. At least three people have died in the assault, according to another military official, Lt. Col. Diarran Kone.
Traore said Malian special forces have entered the hotel and are freeing hostages "floor by floor." Hours after the attacks began, local TV images showed heavily armed troops in what appeared to be a lobby area. Some U.S. military personnel in Bamako are assisting with the rescue efforts, a defense official told Fox News.
Traore said 10 gunmen had stormed the hotel Friday morning shouting "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," in Arabic before firing on the guards. A staffer at the hotel who gave his name as Tamba Diarra said over the phone that the attackers used grenades in the assault.
Al-Mourabitoun, a militant group based in northern Mali, said on Twitter that it was behind the attack, but the claim could not immediately be verified, Reuters reports. The group is led by notorious one-eyed jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who gained recognition in 2013 for an attack on an Algerian gas plant that left 40 people dead, including three Americans.
A handful of jihadi groups, some linked to Al Qaeda, seized the northern half of Mali -- a former French colony -- in 2012 and were ousted from cities and towns by a French military intervention.
The Brussels-based Rezidor Hotel group that operates the hotel said the assailants had initially "locked in" 140 guests and 30 employees. Malian state TV later said 80 people who were taken hostage have now been freed. The hotel said it believes 138 people are still inside the building.
At least six Americans were freed from the hotel, a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command said. It was unclear if there were any other Americans being held captive in the hotel.
The White House said President Obama was briefed about the attack by his national security adviser, Susan Rice. The U.S. Embassy in Mali told citizens to shelter in place amid reports of an "ongoing active shooter operation."
. . . One witness, a Guinean singer, told Reuters that he heard the attackers speaking English. "I heard them say in English ,'Did you load it?', 'Let's go'," Sékouba Bambino Diabaté told the news agency after he was freed.
. . . One freed hostage told France 24 that there are still "lots of people" inside the hotel.
"I also saw bodies in the lobby, It was absolutely horrible," the freed hostage said, according to the Guardian.
Monique Kouame Affoue Ekonde, from Ivory Coast, said she and six other people, including a Turkish woman, were escorted out by security forces as the gunmen rushed "toward the fifth or sixth floor."
"I think they are still there. I've left the hotel and I don't know where to go. I'm tired and in a state of shock," she told The Associated Press.
French President Francois Hollande said France is ready to help Mali with all means necessary in the wake of the attack and urged French citizens in Mali to make contact with the French Embassy there "in order that everything is made to offer them protection…."
How horrible and senseless .