Missionaries Return To Florida After Burkina Faso Terror Attacks

Three attackers have been killed in the assault and three others are still on the run, he said without elaborating. Officials acknowledged though that it was more than four hours after the attack began before security forces tried to enter the hotel.

But Burkina Faso authorities on Wednesday insisted that only three jihadis carried out the attacks and were killed, although more accomplices are being sought.

The team returned to Burkina Faso on Saturday where they had since been waiting to travel back to the United States.

It was then that Burkinabe and French forces realised the attackers had been hiding at the restaurant. Eleven French police and gendarmes are assisting Burkinabe experts with the identification of bodies. That day, shots were heard on Kwame Nkrumah Avenue, near Splendid Hotel and the Cappuccino Restaurant, frequented by expatriates.

ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images A policeman stands guard in front of the Splendid Hotel Sunday.

They were named as Battar al Ansari, Abu Muhammad al Buqali al Ansari and Ahmed al Fulani al Ansari.

French special forces based in West Africa were involved in the operation to end the hotel siege in its former colony.

AQIM claimed a similar attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital Bamako that killed 20 people in November.

Mr Valls said that African democracies have become prime targets of Islamist jihadists. “And especially countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and Tunisia, which represent democracy and calm” on the continent.

The group says he was waiting for the group in a cafe Friday in the capital of Ouagadougou when terrorists struck, taking his life.

“We want to reassure the people that live on our soil that foreigners can continue to come to our country, and to invest in our country, because we are ahead on this and we continue to march forward”, Compaore said.

Alaoui and her driver Mahamadi Ouedraogo were parked in a van outside the cafe, and both died as a result of the attack. “We must prepare ourselves for an adequate response”, he said near the site of the attack.

Leila was born in Paris, and her work focused on migration, identity, and cultural diversity, in an unusual and deft combination of fine art and documentary photography.

The French parliament has observed a minute’s silence in their memory.

In a reminder of the fragile security situation, an elderly Australian couple were kidnapped on Friday in Burkina Faso’s northern Baraboule region, near the border with Niger and Mali.