Mali hotel attack death toll at 19, as al-Qaeda seen trying to assert itself

The heavily armed Islamic extremists who shot up a luxury hotel in Mali's capital, killing 19 people, timed their assault for the moment when guards would be the most lax, allowing them to easily blast their way past a five-man security team before turning their weapons on terrified guests, a security guard and witnesses said Saturday.

The timing suggested a well-planned operation that analysts say could be an attempt by al-Qaeda to assert its relevance amid high-profile attacks by the rival Islamic State in Iraq and Syria group.

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The attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako began at around 7 a.m. local time Friday when two of the 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 their 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.

Once inside, at least one of the assailants headed for the kitchen and restaurant, sparking pandemonium, said Mohammed Coulibaly, a cook at the hotel.

"I was busy cooking when a waitress started screaming at the door, 'They are attacking us, they are attacking us!' " Coulibaly said. "I asked everyone to go into the hallway, so everyone headed in that direction. Suddenly we heard the footsteps of the jihadists behind us and there was total panic and people were running in every direction."

Coulibaly said he then hid in a bathroom with one of the guests, but one of the assailants saw him through a window and started firing, prompting him to run to the kitchen where he was nearly overwhelmed by smoke.

"I realized that if I didn't leave the kitchen the smoke would kill me. So I waited until I didn't hear any noise and I ran from the kitchen and escaped the hotel through a window," he said.

By that point, the assailants were heading upstairs where they took dozens of hostages, launching a standoff with Malian security forces that lasted more than seven hours and claimed 19 lives in addition to the attackers'. All but one of the victims were hotel guests.

The guests at the hotel included visitors from Canada, France, Belgium, Germany, China, India, Ivory Coast and Turkey. Three Quebecers were among the hostages freed from the hotel. There were 170 people at the Radisson at the time, including 140 guests and 30 employees.

Among the dead in the 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.

Malian officials initially estimated 10 gunmen partook in the assault, but later said the number could have been as few as two to five. Security officials were still combing Bamako on Saturday for attackers who might have escaped from the scene.

Speaking to reporters briefly after visiting the hotel on Saturday, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said the attack underscored the global threat posed by Islamic extremists, especially coming just one week after teams of attackers from ISIS  killed 130 people in Paris while targeting a stadium, a concert hall and cafés and restaurants.

"These people have attacked Paris and other places. Nowhere is excluded," Keita said.

Group linked to abduction of Canadians

Responsibility for the Radisson attack was claimed by Al-Mourabitoun (The Sentinels), an extremist group formed by notorious Algerian militant Moktar Belmoktar, in a statement Friday that said it was carried out in co-operation with al-Qaeda's "Sahara Emirate."

Belmoktar, an Algerian militant and former al-Qaeda commander who has long been based in the Sahara, shot to prominence after his group carried out a January 2013 attack on an Algerian gas plant that resulted in the death of 39 foreign workers.

Belmoktar is also accused of being the architect of a number of abductions, including that of former Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay in Niger in December 2008.

Jean-Herve Jezequel, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, said Al-Mourabitoun may be allying with al-Qaeda in the face of the losses the extremists have suffered at the hands of French forces that intervened in Mali in 2013 after much of the north fell to radical Islamists.

The attack may also be a way for al-Qaeda and its allies to assert itself in the face of the highly publicized string of attacks carried out by its chief rival in jihad, the Islamic State group, or ISIS.

While ISIS does not have a major presence in this region, its successes elsewhere in the world have resulted in local radical groups pledging allegiance to it.

"Al-Qaeda and its international affiliates have been surpassed by [ISIS] and needed to show that they are still there," said Djallil Lounnes, an expert on radical groups in the Sahara based in Morocco.

"The attack on the hotel was perfect — only foreign delegations in a highly secure area — so the message would be that we, al-Qaeda, can strike high-quality targets, not just random civilians."