Extremist group claims responsibility for attack

Automatic weapons fire could be heard from outside as the militants attacked the 190-room hotel, the agency reported.

National broadcaster ORTM, citing security officials, said 18 bodies were found at the hotel so far and that no more hostages were being held. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon decried the “horrific terrorist attack” and said the violence was aimed at derailing the implementation of a June peace agreement between rival factions.

Mali army commander Modibo Nama Traore told the Associated Press than 10 gunman entered the hotel armed with AK-47s while screaming “God is great” in Arabic before shooting and throwing grenades.

And in August, 17 people were killed during an attack on a hotel in Sevare in central Mali, a few 600 km (375 miles) northeast of Bamako, that was claimed by the Sahara-based Islamist militant group al-Mourabitoun.

“In response to the request from the Malian authorities, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian made a decision to send a unit of French special forces”, the ministry said, adding they had come in from Burkina Faso.

The guests included visitors from France, Belgium, Germany, China, India, Canada, Ivory Coast and Turkey.

Human Rights Watch has described the group as Islamists who commit “serious abuses in the course of military operations against Mali’s security forces”. “They are alone with the Malian special forces who are trying to dislodge them”, spokesman Amadou Sangho said.

A radical Islamist militant leader in Mali had called on his followers to target French interests in the country, according to BBC.

“Mr Dieudonne, with other foreign colleagues, was in Mali to give a seminar for Malian parliamentarians”, the Brussels-based parliament said.

“They were masked. At the gate of the hotel, the guard stopped them and they started firing and we fled”.

An Al Qaeda-affiliated African jihadist group “al Mourabitoun” claimed responsibility for the attack.

Also reported safe were 12 members of an Air France flight crew and five from Turkish Airlines.

“Soldiers from France, the former colonial power, have been in Mali since driving out extremist fighters who seized control of the north two years ago”. It did not specify how many soldiers were involved.

Five people, including a French citizen and a Belgian, were also killed in an attack at a restaurant in Bamako in March in the first such incident in the capital.