Mali on state of emergency as three Bamako hotel attackers sought

On Friday, gunmen stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital, Bamako, taking hostage 170 people, many of them foreign nationals.

Malian president Ibrahim Bouba Keita has said both gunmen at the hotel were killed on site although an eyewitness previously said there was at least one additional attacker. We mourn for the people killed in the terrorist attack on a hotel in Mali.

However investigators have revealed little else about the attackers’ identities.

In the wake of the Paris attacks, an Islamic State militant in Syria told Reuters the organisation viewed France’s military intervention in Mali as another reason to target France and French interests.

Two groups-Al-Mourabitoun, which has ties to al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb-have taken responsibility for the attack, but their claims have not been verified.

“The search has started and I can tell you that we are looking for more than three people at the moment”, said Maj Modibo Nama Traore on Saturday.

The siege ended after special security forces stormed the hotel freeing the hostages.

The victims included several Russians, three Chinese, two Belgians and American woman Anita Datar, 41, who had been working in Bamako – Mali’s capital – as a United States envoy for worldwide development firm Palladium.

A Russian governor says the six Russians killed in Mali are part of the plane crew for the Russian cargo company Volga-Dnepr, which operates across the African continent. Geneva, NY and Moscow didn’t shut down either.

The attack came as fears mount over threats a week after 130 people died in the Paris attacks claimed by IS group, which also said it had downed a Russian passenger jet in Egypt on October 31.

Four other Chinese citizens were rescued from Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, said embassy officials.

President Keita announced the 10-day nationwide state of emergency beginning at midnight Friday.

On Tuesday, after officials concluded that the Russian airliner had been brought down by a bomb, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to hunt down the militants responsible for planning the attack.

The country was plunged into violence after a military coup in March 2012 left a power vacuum that allowed Islamist militants to join with separatists and seize the north of the country.

Earlier reports indicated that more than 27 people had been killed, although the death toll now appears to be under 20.