Mali - Twenty killed in Radisson Blu Hotel attack, Bamako, 20 Nov 2015

[Mindmatters]

http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/live-hotel-in-mali-attacked-hostages-taken-20151120-2

LIVE: Group linked to Qaeda claims responsibility for Mali attack


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-34877069

Mali attack: Special forces storm hotel to free hostages

Elley, has there been a concrete number as to how many Americans are being held hostage?

ETA: Have they said what their demands are since they didn't just bomb or mass murder them.

 

[Elley Mae]

Elley, has there been a concrete number as to how many Americans are being held hostage?

An American Defense official said that 12 to 15 Americans were believed to be at the hotel when the gunmen first arrived. Six American citizens have been recovered safely from the hotel, he said. The status of the others is not clear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/world/africa/mali-hotel-attack-radisson.html



Seven Americans are among the hostages who have been rescued from the hotel, a military spokesman tells NPR.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...tel-in-mali-attacked-gunmen-take-170-hostages

 

[Elley Mae]

United Nations peacekeepers say they saw at least 27 bodies inside the hotel, Sky News reports. It was unclear how many were victims.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/11/20/mali-hotel-attack/

Al-Mourabitoun, a militant group based in northern Mali, said on Twitter that it was behind the attack, but the claim could not immediately be verified, Reuters reports.

The Brussels-based Rezidor Hotel group that operates the hotel said the assailants had initially "locked in" 140 guests and 30 employees. Malian state TV later said at least 80 people who were taken hostage have now been freed.

 

[CARIIS]

ok juat gettinfg caught confused -- are all hostages out or did they take em somewhere

 

[Mindmatters]

United Nations peacekeepers say they saw at least 27 bodies inside the hotel, Sky News reports. It was unclear how many were victims.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/11/20/mali-hotel-attack/

Al-Mourabitoun, a militant group based in northern Mali, said on Twitter that it was behind the attack, but the claim could not immediately be verified, Reuters reports.

The Brussels-based Rezidor Hotel group that operates the hotel said the assailants had initially "locked in" 140 guests and 30 employees. Malian state TV later said at least 80 people who were taken hostage have now been freed.

Anxiously waiting to see who the 18-27 alleged victims are... so sick and tired of all this killing

 

[CARIIS]

Yes indeed Steelman. We were also told that Al Qaeda was all but "crushed", and that those JV Islamist terrorists ISIS are on the run. That we are lied to so often about something so important is absolutely unforgiveable.

THIS lying (or incompetence, or both maybe) is why there is fear in this country, it is the direct result of a government that is arrogantly dishonest with it's people not the terrorists themselves.

lied to so often about something so important is absolutely unforgiveable.


I think if we we all knew how often .........pathetic

 

[CARIIS]

Is this my memory but it sure seems like grenades are becoming the "hot" new items

 

[CARIIS]

Not getting a clear piscture yet, were they all released or rescued

 

[CARIIS]

big hotel for diploamats - why targeted?

 

[Mindmatters]

Not getting a clear piscture yet, were they all released or rescued

CARIIS, what I can glean at this time:

Some hostages 6-8 were released early on when they were able to recite the Koran (too many News agencies to cite)
60-80 people were rescued by Special Forces (FoxNews, CNN and The Guardian)
10-27 people have been killed as reported by multiple news sources (FoxNews & CNN)
The hostage situation has ended (CNN)

www.foxnews.com
www.cnn.com
www.theguardian.com

 

[CARIIS]

[h=2]Siege on Radisson Blu in Bamako has more to do with local factors than global war on terror..................[/h]
In March, Al-Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for an attack that killed five people at the popular La Terrace bar and restaurant in the capital’s Hippodrôme neighborhood. The group also said it was behind shots fired at a United Nations vehicle and compound. This year alone, Mali’s violence has killed at least 342 people — including U.N. peacekeepers, foreign personnel and contractors, as in the attack this summer on the Byblos Hotel in the central city of Sévaré. Civilians have also fallen victim to inter-communal fighting and improvised explosive devices.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/11/20/deadly-hotel-attack-underscores-mali-worsening-security-situation.html

 

[CARIIS]

Good News

Mali just declared the EMergency deal! Last Friday I did not know what it meant and after learning such and watching it in action (Belgium) awesome, go talk to anyone yaou want, I think they got a ton of intel from it - which IMO makes Brussels warning ............

 

[FindHG]

​

Anita Datar is the only known American killed in Mali. She was there to help.
By Donna St. George, Joe Heim and Matt Zapotosky
November 2, 2:20 pm

“The world is a darker place without your light,” one stunned friend wrote on Datar’s Facebook page Saturday. “I am praying for your little boy.”

Her brother was quoted saying

“Anita was one of the kindest and most generous people we know. She loved her family and her work tremendously. Everything she did in her life she did to help others — as a mother, public health expert, daughter, sister and friend. And while we are angry and saddened that she has been killed, we know that she would want to promote education and health care to prevent violence and poverty at home and abroad, not intolerance.”

“From what I understand, they were on the lower floors of the hotel, and Anita was not,” he said.




Rest in peace Anita Datar

:rose:​

 

[HMSHood]

Mail has had problems with Islamists. It is interesting to note it happend a week after the Paris Terrorist Attacks.

 

[Peliman]

big hotel for diploamats - why targeted?

My view it was for economic impact against Mali in terms of canceled reservations, cancelled air reservations and tourist trade.

 

[FindHG]

Mail has had problems with Islamists. It is interesting to note it happend a week after the Paris Terrorist Attacks.

And the Paris attacks, IIRC, in a MSM debate including a French lawmaker from last week, happened exactly two years after a law was passed in response to the MM case.

 

[FindHG]

COMPETING ON CARNAGE

The assault on Paris was an implicit rebuke of al-Qaida, which hasn't carried off an attack on that scale in several years. If the Mali attack turns out to be a response of some kind, it could herald a new era of global competition between the two groups, each seeking to outdo the other with ever more devastating attacks.


A look at the rivalry between al-Qaida and IS
By JOSEPH KRAUSS AP
Nov. 21, 2015 2:27 PM EST




Raw: Mali Security Tightens After Hotel Massacre
Associated Press video on Malian forensic investigators and LE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Svh5wCuwUQ&feature=youtu.be



Mali attack latest to rattle global security: The deadly hotel siege underscores a broader threat
by Robyn Dixon LOS ANGLES TIMES
7:05 pm, yesterday

A group led by Al Qaeda's most notorious leader in northern Africa, Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar,...

... leads a group of Tuaregs and Arabs known as Al Murabitoun, is a staunch Al Qaeda loyalist who has denounced Islamic State for dividing Muslim militants. He led a 2013 operation in Algeria in which militants laid siege to a gas facility in the eastern Algeria city of Ajdabiya, an operation that included taking 800 hostages and killing 39 foreigners, including three Americans and six Britons.








Hotel Attack in Mali Is a Setback in Fight Against Extremism
By DIONNE SEARCEY, ADAM NOSSITER, CARLOTTA GALL and SOMINI SENGUPTA
NEW YORK TIMES
Nov 21 '15

"The brutal attacks in Paris this month were a strike against France’s joie de vivre. The siege of Kenya’s gleaming Westgate mall two years ago was an assault on that country’s rising prosperity, modernity and stability. The terrifying attack on the Radisson Blu here in Mali’s capital was a strike on this nation’s fragile efforts to restore peace after years of fighting."


“It means that we’re not over it yet,” said Karim Keïta, the president’s son and the head of Mali’s commission of national defense. “We had a terrorist past, but we’re not over it.”


The man pulled out a grenade, a gun and some other items that Mr. Maiga could not make out. The man then picked up the gun and fired it into the air before walking toward two security guards outside the hotel. He shot one, crossed the road, then shot the other. Both of the men collapsed, Mr. Maiga said. One of them, a friend of Mr. Maiga’s, later died.


“I felt shots brushing by my head,” he said. The gunman leaned close and lightly brushed Mr. Yazbeck’s lips with his hand, apparently checking to see if he were still alive. Then he left.

At one point, the second gunman came into the kitchen and calmly took some meat from the fridge, grilled it and ate it during a break in the killing.


and did not hesitate to open fire on fellow Muslims (a statement that was at odds with other accounts). “When he saw me, he just fired,” he said. Three of the five hotel staff members on breakfast duty were killed, he said.

“There are a lot of actors who continue to threaten,” said Pierre Englebert, an expert on African politics at Pomona College. “We are not far from where we were in 2012 in terms of state weakness.”

 

[FindHG]

Thomas Robert speaks with Expert about Mali attacks
MSNBC2:19





American Survivor of Mali Hotel Attack: 'I Just Knew I Was Dead'
By ALEXANDER MARQUARDT RYM MOMTAZ SCOTT SHULMAN
ABCNEWS
Nov 21, 2015, 5:59 PM ET a brave interview

"They were right behind us."

 

[FindHG]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/89ed...6884d/latest-guinea-mourn-victims-mali-attack

BAMAKO time 2:15 p.m.

two gunmen who shot up a luxury hotel in the capital on Friday were armed with two Kalashnikov assault rifles, explosives and "a large amount of ammunition."

Maj. Modibo Nama Traore said Sunday that the gunmen had grenades and other explosives but did not use them in the course of the more than seven-hour siege that killed 19 people. The two attackers also died.
...
.... security forces were hunting for "more than three" people who may have been involved in the attack...

no new arrests...





Mali Searching for ‘Several’ Accomplices in Radisson Hotel Siege
by Francois Rihouay & Benjamin D Katz, BLOOMBERG
November 22, 2015 — 8:18 AM EST


State looking for people who hosted gunmen before assault

As many as 22 people died after Radisson hotel was seized

searching for several people who aided at least two gunmen, one a teenager and the other about 22 years old,


~

NOT OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED Be Cautious: ??There may have been accomplices with fake passports in the hotel already.?? The investigation continues.
​

American, Belgian, Russian and Chinese citizens among victims


http://www.france24.com/en/ notes from livestream

 

[FindHG]

Mali deepens probe after deadly attack on luxury hotel
BAMAKO REUTERS
Sun Nov 22, 2015 5:53pm EST

"investigators were following "several leads" after 19 people were killed in an attack on a luxury hotel claimed by two jihadist groups."
...

a total of 13 foreigners were killed, including six Russians, three Chinese, two Belgians, an American and a Senegalese.
...

Former colonial power France is assisting with the probe and has sent in a team of elite investigators to assist.
...

Senegal's president, Macky Sall, the current chairman of ECOWAS, arrived in the capital on Sunday to express condolences and vowed to help its neighbor fight terrorism.

"Mali will never be alone," said Sall. "We stand together with Mali and together we will lead the fight."