Attack at Luxury Hotel Kills 22 in Mali One Week After Terror in France

Nov. 22, 2015

Malian soldiers rescuing hostages

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – An attack on the luxury Radisson Blu Hotel in the capital of Mali was carried out by some 10 Islamic militants said to be seeking revenge for French military operations in the country since 2012.

Before they were overwhelmed by Malian, French and U.S. coordinated actions, the militants took 170 hostages and killed at least 22, including one American. Five U.S. Department of Defense attaches staying at the hotel managed to survive Friday’s assault, according to the military publication Stars and Stripes.

One U.S. special operator aided Mali Special Forces as they moved hostages, including at least six Americans, to a secure location from the Radisson Blu in Bamako after militants stormed the building, AFRICOM spokesman Army Col. Mark Cheadle told reporters in Washington.

Colin Freeman of the UK Sunday Telegraph, stationed in Bamako, reported that the militants had questioned hotel security guards to know the whereabouts of an Air France crew staying there.

The guard’s account suggests that French citizens were singled out because of the country's two-year long military campaign against Islamists in northern Mali. It might also explain the Air France's decision to suspend its twice daily flights from Paris to Bamako shortly afterwards, Freeman said.

The assault began around 7 a.m. Friday morning, Nov. 20,  when two gunmen, approaching on foot, reached the entrance where five guards who had worked the night shift were waiting to be replaced by a new team, said Cheick Dabo, one of the guards.

The guards had just finished the morning prayer and had put their weapons — a shotgun and two pistols — away in their vehicle when the militants struck.

"We didn't see the jihadists until they started firing on us. We weren't concentrating and we didn't expect it," he said.

Four of the guards were shot, one fatally, while Dabo himself managed to hide under a car.

A Jihadi group, the Al-Mourabitoun (The Sentinels), took credit for the attack. The group, which split two years ago from al-Qaida’s North Africa branch, said it wants its fighters freed from Mali’s prisons and attacks against northern Malians to stop, according to a recorded statement by Algerian militant Moktar Belmoktar carried by Al-Jazeera. The statement said the attack was coordinated with the “Sahara Emirate,” which is affiliated with al-Qaida.

Meanwhile, all DOD personnel — 22 military and civilian workers — in Bamako were accounted for and uninjured, a defense official said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the situation.

The rescue effort puts a spotlight on a mission the governments in Washington and Bamako have quietly cultivated in recent years. French and U.S. troops have worked with the Malian military as it battles a growing insurgency.

The French military played a leading role in the response a year after the coup with U.S. air support. Up to 4,000 French soldiers were involved, along with 6,400 soldiers from African nations, according to a Rand Corp. study of the mission. Among the French units involved were the French Foreign Legion, which included at least one U.S. soldier who had deserted to join.

Among the dead in the Radisson attack were a 41-year-old American development worker, six Russian plane crew from a cargo company, and three senior executives from the powerful state-owned China Railway Construction Corp., officials said. 

The Mali attack came one week after 130 people were killed and dozens wounded in an Isis terrorist attack in Paris.

Speaking in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia over the weekend, President Barack Obama acknowledged growing concerns about the "urgent threat of terrorism" around the world. He sought to assure his commitment to dealing with the threats of Isis as well as al-Quaida.

"Of course, given the events of this week, much of my work here in Asia focused on the urgent threat of terrorism," he said during a press conference at the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia summits. "Today, families in too many nations are grieving the senseless loss of their loved ones in the attacks in France and in Mali.  As Americans, we remember Nohemi Gonzalez, who was just 23 years old, a design major from California State University.  She was in Paris to pursue her dream of designing innovations that would improve the lives of people around the world.  And we remember Anita Datar of Maryland.  She’s a veteran of the Peace Corps, a mother to her young son, who devoted her life to helping the world’s poor, including women and girls in Mali, lift themselves up with health and education."

Obama concluded, "All of which is to say that our coalition will not relent.  We will not accept the idea that terrorist assaults on restaurants and theaters and hotels are the new normal - or that we are powerless to stop them.  After all, that’s precisely what terrorists like ISIL want, because, ultimately, that’s the only way that they can win.  That’s the very nature of terrorism --they can’t beat us on the battlefield, so they try to terrorize us into being afraid, into changing our patterns of behavior, into panicking, into abandoning our allies and partners, into retreating from the world.  And as President, I will not let that happen."

Trice Edney News Wire Editor-in-chief Hazel Trice Edney contributed to this story.