AFP & Reuters
BAMAKO, Mali — At least 27 people were reported dead on Friday after Malian commandos, assisted by foreign special forces, stormed a luxury hotel in the capital Bamako with at least 170 people inside, many of them foreigners, that had been seized by militants.
Ministerial adviser Amadou Sangho told the French television station BFMTV that no more hostages were being held.
Special forces raid hotel
Earlier, Malian special forces and police backed by members of the UN’s MINUSMA peacekeeping force in Mali and French troops were seeking to end the siege where 170 people were initially seized.
US special operations troops had also helped rescue at least six Americans from the luxury hotel, the US military said.
“A small group of US forces have helped move civilians to a secure location,” US Africa Command’s Colonel Mark Cheadle told reporters in Washington, adding that “at least six US citizens” had been rescued.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said about 25 US military personnel were in Bamako at the time of the incident.
The official declined to comment on whether additional US troops were being sent to the region.
Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Baldanza had said the US troops were from Special Operations Command Forward-North and they had been working with “West Africa personnel.“
French special forces had also deployed at the luxury hotel to assist in ending the mass hostage-taking, the French defence ministry said Friday.
“In response to the request from the Malian authorities, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian decided to send a unit of French special forces,” the ministry said, adding they had come in from Burkina Faso.
The units were “in place from 1300 GMT”, the ministry said.
Three hostages were killed earlier in the day, a spokesman for the security ministry in Mali said, but said their identities were being verified.
“Our special forces have freed hostages and 30 others were able to escape on their own,” Security Minister Salif Traore told AFP.
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who is in Chad for a summit of leaders from the Sahel region, is cutting his trip short and flying home, the presidency told AFP.
Around 40 officers from an elite French unit of paramilitary police specialised in hostage situations also left for Mali to assist with the operation.
The US embassy in Mali advised American citizens in the country to shelter where they were, contact their families and monitor local media.
Previous attacks
The Radisson attack follows a siege in August lasting almost 24 hours at a hotel in the central town of Sevare in which five UN workers were killed, along with four soldiers and four attackers.
Militants groups have continued to wage attacks in Mali despite a June peace deal between former Tuareg rebels in the country’s north and rival pro-government armed groups.
The country’s north fell under the control of Tuareg rebels and militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda in mid-2012 before they were beaten back by by a French-led operation in early 2013.
In a recording authenticated by Malian authorities this week, a militant leader in Mali denounced the peace deal and called for further attacks against France, which is helping national forces fight extremists.