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Burkina Faso hotel attacked by al-Qaida catches fire Al-Qaeda group storms hotel in Burkina Faso, takes hostages
(about 1 hour later)
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Al-Qaida militants struck an upscale hotel and nearby cafe late Friday that are popular with Westerners in Burkina Faso’s capital, taking an unknown number of hostages and forcing others to hide for their lives as gunfire and explosions rang out. Commandos used explosives to storm the building five hours later, accidentally setting fire to the hotel. NAIROBI — Gunmen stormed a luxury hotel Friday in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, in a dramatic attack that widened concern about the ability of Islamist extremists to attack civilian targets across Sub-Saharan Africa.
It was not immediately known how many people may have been killed during the siege, though a survivor told hospital director Robert Sangare he estimated the toll could be as high as 20. At least 15 other people were seriously wounded by bullets and undergoing treatment at the Yalgado Ouedraogo hospital, he said. An al-Qaeda affiliate in the region claimed responsibility for the attack, which according to one reported witness account killed as many as 20 people.
The local al-Qaida affiliate known as AQIM claimed responsibility online as the attack was ongoing in downtown Ouagadougou at the 147-room Splendid Hotel, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. Even as Islamist groups have waged attacks across the continent — al-Shabab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Qaeda in Mali — Burkina Faso had largely been spared such extremist violence. Friday’s assault on the Splendid Hotel, frequented by foreigners, diplomats and well-to-do Burkinabes, appears to change that.
In a message posted in Arabic on the militants’ ”Muslim Africa” Telegram account, it said fighters had “broke into a restaurant of one of the biggest hotels in the capital of Burkina Faso, and are now entrenched and the clashes are continuing with the enemies of the religion.” Fighters who spoke by phone later “asserted the fall of many dead Crusaders,” AQIM said, according to SITE. On the “Muslim Africa” Telegram account of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the extremist group wrote that its fighters “are now entrenched and the clashes are continuing with the enemies of the religion,” according to a translation from the Site Intelligence Group.
Witness Vital Nounagnon told the AP that he saw four men wearing turbans attack the hotel and neighboring Cappuccino Cafe about 7:30 p.m. Another witness who gave only his first name, Gilbert, said that when Burkinabe security forces first arrived, they turned around rather than confront the attackers. Witnesses told the Associated Press that four armed men burst into the hotel and a neighboring cafe at 7:30 p.m. Other reports said the assault began when men set fire to vehicles outside the hotel. Once they entered, the attackers took a number of hostages, and flames engulfed the area near the scene.
“But we know that the gunmen won’t get out of the hotel alive,” he said. “Our country is not for jihadists or terrorists. They got it wrong.” “There are many hostages from many nationalities in the hotel,” the country’s foreign minister, Alpha Barry, said on France 24, a television station.
A man who works the day shift at the Cappuccino Cafe, Alpha Ouedraogo, had left just 90 minutes before the attack began. He said he had been in touch by phone with other employees and that more than a dozen of them were in hiding and awaiting rescue. The attack mirrored an operation in November, when fighters from two groups — al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun — held hotel guests hostage at the Radisson Blu in Mali’s capital, leaving 20 people dead. The death toll in Friday’s attack in Ouagadougou remained unclear as Burkinabe security forces waged a gun battle with the attackers, according to news reports.
Burkina Faso, a largely Muslim country, had for years been mostly spared from the violence carried out by Islamic extremist groups who were abducting foreigners for ransom in Mali and Niger. Then last April, a Romanian national was kidnapped in an attack that was the first of its kind in Burkina Faso. A survivor told Robert Sangare, a local hospital director, that he thought the number of dead could be as high as 20, according to the Associated Press. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed that 30 “Crusaders” had been killed in the attack.
The country also has been in growing political turmoil since its longtime president was ousted in a popular uprising in late 2014. Last September members of a presidential guard launched a coup that lasted only about a week. The transitional government returned to power until Burkina Faso’s November election ushered in new leaders. Burkina Faso, a former French colony, has worked with France and the United States in the fight against violent Islamist extremists in West Africa.
Friday’s violence mirrored a devastating attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in neighboring Mali back in November that left 20 people dead. In that case, Malian troops — backed by French and American special forces — swarmed in to retake the building and free terrified guests and hotel staff during a siege that lasted more than seven hours. On Friday, at least one member of the U.S. military was “providing advice and assistance to French forces at the hotel,” according to an American defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity under Pentagon rules.
The Bamako hotel attack also was claimed by a leader of AQIM, who said it had been carried out as a declaration of unity with Algerian militant Moktar Belmoktar’s extremist group Al-Mourabitoun, according to an audio speech that was distributed by SITE at the time. Belmoktar was a former leader in AQIM before starting his own group, which now has merged back with al-Qaida. The official said France had asked for U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support. The U.S. military has about 60 troops in the country who work with the French troops on security assistance.
___ Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said in a later statement that the operation was aimed at punishing France and the “disbelieving West,” according to the Site translation.
Associated Press writer Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report. In the past few weeks there has a string of terrorist attacks claimed by al-Qaeda’s rival, the Islamic State, in different parts of the world. On Thursday, assailants set off bombs and opened fire on a busy street in Jakarta, Indonesia. Five of the attackers and two other people — a Canadian and an Indonesian — died.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Two days earlier, a suicide bomber set off a blast in the historic tourist district of Istanbul, killing 10 German tourists. Those two attacks were claimed by the Islamic State.
Before Friday, Burkina Faso had been plagued far more by domestic political problems than terrorism. The country has been in turmoil since October 2014, when President Blaise Compaoré was overthrown during large protests. Compaoré now lives in exile in the Ivory Coast, but forces loyal to him staged a coup in September, briefly seizing power. In November, voters chose Roch Marc Kaboré, a former prime minister, as the new president.
Last year, in an incident that was seen largely as an aberration, a Romanian security guard was abducted from a manganese mine near Burkina Faso’s border with Mali. Al- Mourabitoun, an al-Qaeda linked group, later claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
Dan Lamothe and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
Read more:
France’s war in Mali has not been able to end extremist violence
What went wrong in Burkina Faso and what’s next?
Can Burkina Faso — Africa’s most coup-prone state — become a stable democracy?
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