New statement said to identify gunmen in Mali attack

Two executives from Vancouver-based B2Gold Corp (TSX:BTO, NYSE:BTG) were staying at the Radisson Blu hotel in the Mali capital of Bamako when gunmen stormed the premises.

Gunmen went on a rampage from the early morning, shooting in the hotel’s corridors and taking 170 guests and staff hostage.

An American public health worker, six Russians, three Chinese, two Belgians and an Israeli national were among those who died in the attack.

An al-Qaeda-affiliated group later claimed responsibility.

In a recording broadcast by Al-Jazeera, a spokesman identified them as Abdelhakim al-Ansari and Moez al-Ansari, the term “al-Ansari” indicating they were indigenous jihadists.

Mali began a three-day mourning period with flags flying at half-staff on Monday for victims of the assault on a luxury hotel full of foreigners, a day after a dueling claim of responsibility emerged.

The group said yesterday there were only two attackers and suggested they were Malian.

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

Many of those killed are reported to have been shot dead while trying to escape the attackers in a lift. “I knew I used to be going to turn in to a victim, ’cause alls in that they had to do was look down beneath of there”. These groups were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in 2013 but continue to start assaults, including on United Nations peacekeepers stationed in the region.

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.

The new group, the Macina Liberation Front, is active in central Mali and said it had worked with yet another militant group, Ansar Dine.

In the absence of clear information, analysts have speculated on other possible motives, including a desire to disrupt Mali’s fragile local peace process or a wish by al-Qaida to demonstrate its relevance amid high-profile attacks by its rival, the Islamic State group.