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4 Rescued in Mali Hotel Attack 4 Rescued in Mali Hotel Attack
(about 2 hours later)
BAMAKO, Mali — Mali’s special forces on Saturday rescued four people who hid in a hotel for nearly 24 hours after Islamic extremists stormed the building and carried out a rare attack far from their northern strongholds that killed nine people, officials said. BAMAKO, Mali — The first attack by Islamic extremists in a central Mali town, in which 10 people died, showed that jihadist aggressions are spreading in the country and hitting more directly at the government military and the United Nations peacekeeping force, an expert said Saturday.
Three attackers were also killed in the fighting at the Hotel Byblos in the town of Sevare, about 375 miles northeast of Bamako, Mali’s capital. Three of the attackers also were killed, and seven suspected militants were detained, the government said. Four United Nations employees were rescued.
The four people rescued were United Nations employees, said a spokeswoman for the United Nations mission in Mali, Radhia Achouri. Additional United Nations personnel may still be missing, said an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of lack of authorization to speak to the news media.
“Our contractors survived because at no time was their presence discovered by the terrorists in the hotel,” Ms. Achouri said. The four — two South Africans, a Russian and a Ukrainian — would be sent to Bamako, she said. The militants first targeted the army camp in Sevare on Friday, but when they faced resistance, they moved to the nearby Hotel Debo before assaulting the Hotel Byblos, popular with United Nations staff, to take hostages, said a Mali government report, according to the official.
Other United Nations personnel may still be missing, said a United Nations official not authorized to speak to the press on the matter. Some personnel could not be reached, and some of the attackers fled Sevare after the initial attacks on Friday morning, the official said. Sevare, a garrison town about 375 miles northeast of the capital, Bamako, is at the heart of Mali’s tourism industry and until now had not been targeted in the attacks more common in the northern towns of Gao and Timbuktu.
The Malian Army surrounded the hotel on Friday, and gunfire could be heard into the night. Mali’s special forces were sent to Sevare from Bamako early Saturday and carried out an operation to rescue the people inside the hotel. It was unclear how many fighters were involved. “It’s a troubling sign that the armed Islamist groups are intent on stepping up the pressure both on the Malian government and on the U.N. and French presence,” said Bruce Whitehouse, a Mali expert and associate professor at Lehigh University. “They want to show they are not just contained within the north and that they’re not afraid to confront their primary enemies where they’re strongest.”
After the operation, the bodies of three hotel employees and one attacker were found in the hotel, said Lt. Col. Diarran Kone, a Defense Ministry adviser. Colonel Kone and the United Nations said that the total death toll at the hotel was 12: three civilians, five Malian soldiers, a United Nations contractor and three attackers. Whitehouse said the attack was likely intended “to signal all Malians everywhere that neither their government nor the U.N. can keep them safe,” but he noted the rapid response by Mali’s forces.
A 38-year-old South African who died in the attack worked for an aviation company that was assisting the United Nations contingent in Mali, Nelson Kgwete, spokesman for South Africa’s Foreign Ministry, said on Twitter. Four citizens of Ukraine were among those captured by the militants during the attack and one of them was killed, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. The attackers may be followers of Amadou Koufa, a leader who has been linked to attacks on Mali’s Army, including a January attack that killed 10 soldiers in Nampala, said Col. Souleymane Maiga, chief spokesman for the military.
The government said Friday that its forces had detained seven people it linked to the attack. The four rescued United Nations employees are two South Africans, a Russian and a Ukrainian who are all in good health, said Radhia Achouri, a United Nations spokeswoman.
Northern Mali fell under the control of jihadis in 2012 but a French-led offensive ousted them in 2013. Remnants of the group have attacked United Nations peacekeepers and Malian forces. In a statement later Saturday, the United Nations said five of its contractors died, including a Malian, a Nepalese, a South African and two Ukrainians.