GLOBAL INSECURITY
GUNMEN STORM HOTEL SHOUTING 'ALLAHU AKBAR'
27 dead in Mali 'bloodbath,' al-Qaida takes credit
Cheryl Chumley
Between 10 and 12 attackers screaming “Allahu Akbar” unleashed bombs and gunfire at the five-star Radisson Blu hotel in the Mali capital city of Bamako on Friday, taking 170 hostages at one point and implementing Quran recitation tests.
Those who successfully quoted the Shadaha from the Muslim holy book were set free. Those who could not were shot. The Shahada is the Muslim prayer of conversion: “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.”
As many as 27 bodies were counted, Fox News reported, as the hostage standoff came to an end shortly before 12 noon EST in the west African nation. CNN was reporting 18 dead.
Mali state television was reporting that no more hostages were left inside the luxury hotel but the fate of the gunmen remains unclear. They were said to be holed up on the seventh floor.
Friday’s attack comes while the world is on edge exactly one week after ISIS terror attacks killed 129 in Paris.
Among those slaughtered in Mali were two Malian, a Belgium citizen and at least one French national. The hotel is a known Western landmark in the midst of a Muslim country so there are likely to be scores of Westerners among the dead.
Six U.S. citizens were reportedly rescued from the hotel.
“It’s all happening on the seventh floor, jihadists are firing in the corridor,” one security official told Agence France-Press reported.
Malian soldiers and security forces with the United Nations surrounded the facility and set up a perimeter, while special forces stormed the building.
Fox News reported the attackers arrived on scene via diplomatic vehicles, firing weapons as they plowed through the front gates.
Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. Many al-Qaida factions in Africa have pledged allegiance to ISIS.
CNN reported the timing of the attack is both concerning and suspicious, as it comes just one day after French President Francois Hollande heaped praise on his military for successful battles against Islamists in the African country.
Mali, a a former French colony, has an active jihadist movement in the north of the country.
Hollande said, according to CNN: “France is leading this war with its armed forces, its soldiers, its courage. It must carry out this war with its allies, its partners giving us all the means available, as we did in Mali, as we are going to continue in Iraq, as we’ll continue in Syria.”
Olivier Saldag, a spokesman for the United Nations mission in Mali, called MINUSMA, said the hotel was hosting a delegation for the peace process. The U.N. had sent peacekeepers to Mali back in 2013 to fight off an insurgency from radical Islamists who wanted to take over Bamako.
President Obama has been briefed on the situation, but has yet to issue a statement. The U.S. Embassy in Mali, meanwhile, told American citizens to stay inside. In a tweet, embassy officials wrote: “[This is an] ongoing active shooter operation.”
WND news editor Leo Hohmann contributed to this report.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/mali-hotel-under-siege-as-gunmen-hold-170-hostage/#ogQH87AAuZu7fCU5.99
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