Chinese president strongly condemns Mali hotel attack

Gunmen who stormed a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital Friday and seized more than 100 guests and staff no longer have any hostages after a rescue operation by special forces, the government said.

Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has cut short a trip to a regional summit in Chad.

An unnamed United Nations official has said at least 27 people have been killed. It is not clear how many attackers there were – there are reports of up to 13. One of the hostages killed was Geoffrey Dieudonne, a member of parliament in Belgium’s Wallonia region.

China Railway Construction Corporation Limited confirmed Saturday in an online statement that three executives of the company were killed in the attack.

The ministry on Friday afternoon had initially denied that any Russians were in the hotel during the attack. Tha Mali attack was the latest in a series of deadly raids this year on high-profile targets in the country, which has battled Islamist rebels based in its desert north for years.

It also called for three days of mourning for the victims of the attack, which was claimed by the Al-Murabitoun group of notorious Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar in an audio recording broadcast by Al-Jazeera television. French special forces were dispatched to the scene.

About 1,000 French troops remain in the country.

Price said that the United States “stands with the people of Mali” and “prepared to assist the Malian government as it investigate the tragic terrorist attack”.