Mali hotel attack: Police show photos of two dead suspects

The two gunmen were killed.

Vice President Kwesi Amissah Arthur has left Accra for Bamako Mali to express the condolence of government for the Radisson Blu Hotel attack which left 22 people dead.

The UN peacekeeping force in Mali (MINUSMA), which is helping with the inquiry, gave the same toll.

Senegal’s President Macky Sall visited Bamako yesterday to show national solidarity and the support of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS which he chairs.

Security was tightened at hotels in the capital, Bamako, while neighboring nations Senegal, Mauritania and Guinea joined in the three days of mourning over Friday’s bloodshed.

Al Mourabitoun, a militant Islamic group with ties to Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

But a Mauritanian news outlet allegedly received a voice recording from someone affiliated with Al Mourabitoun, which called the two dead gunmen “heroes of Islam” and named them as Abdel Hakim Al-Ansari and Moadh Al-Ansari.

Malian officials say they are looking for “at least” three suspects. But officials have yet to confirm their identities and said they did not know if the attackers were based in Bamako before the attack.

Samake said the investigation was advancing.

“We are following several lines, but we won’t be making a statement”, the police source told AFP.

“The jihadis are in different groups but their goal is the same, and that’s to hinder implementation of the peace accord”, Sidati said.

Brussels will remain at the highest possible alert level Monday, with schools, universities and metros closed over a “serious and imminent” threat of attacks similar to those that struck Paris, the Belgian prime minister said… “We are processing the information but it could mean many things”. The travel warning says that terrorists have aimed “large sporting events, theatres, open markets, and aviation services”, so the travel alert tells people to “exercise vigilance” while in public and “avoid large crowds or crowded places”.

“I’m the captain of this vessel”, he said.

Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda seized Mali’s desert north in 2012 following a separatist rebellion however have been scattered by a French army operation the next yr.

His claims suggested the group was targeting French citizens because of the country’s two-year long military campaign against Islamists in northern Mali.

France has more than 1,000 troops in its former colony, a key battleground of the Barkhane counter-terror mission spanning five countries in Africa’s restive Sahel region.