At least 10 bodies were found Saturday inside a café that was attacked by the same Al Qaeda-linked militants who stormed an upscale hotel in the Burkina Faso capital, according to a government minister.
Internal Affairs Minister Simon Compaore said the bodies are inside the Cappuccino Café, a restaurant adjoined to the Splendid Hotel.
Heavy gunfire erupted again early Saturday as French forces assisted Burkinabe in working to free an unknown number of hostages still inside the Splendid Hotel. At least 33 people have made it to safety amid a siege launched by at least four gunmen.
A death toll has not been confirmed, but hospital director Robert Sangare told the Associated Press he estimated the toll could be as high as 20. At least 15 other people were seriously wounded by bullets and are undergoing treatment at the Yalgado Ouedraogo, he said.
The local Al Qaeda-affiliate, known as AQIM, took responsibility online as the attack was ongoing in downtown Ouagadougou at the 147-room Splendid Hotel, according to the SITE Intelligence Group which monitors jihadist activity.
In a message posted in Arabic on the militants’ “Muslim Africa” Telegram account, it said fighters had “broke into a restaurant of one of the biggest hotels in the capital of Burkina Faso, and are now entrenched and the clashes are continuing with the enemies of the religion.” Fighters who spoke by phone later “asserted the fall of many dead Crusaders,” AQIM said, according to SITE.
In the early morning hours, French forces arrived in Ouagadougou from neighboring Mali to aid the effort. Burkinabe soldiers already had stormed the building, at one point briefly setting part of the building ablaze with their explosives.
Cars in front of the hotel also had been set on fire by the attackers, who stormed the bustling area downtown Friday evening.
Witness Vital Nounagnon told the AP that he saw four men wearing turbans attack the hotel and neighboring Cappuccino Cafe about 7:30 p.m. Another witness who gave only his first name, Gilbert, said that when Burkinabe security forces first arrived, they turned around rather than confront the attackers.
“But we know that the gunmen won’t get out of the hotel alive,” he said. “Our country is not for jihadists or terrorists. They got it wrong.”
The Pentagon was closely following the incident, a Defense official told Fox News.
“We can tell you that all DoD personnel are accounted for, and that reports that U.S. military people are sheltering in the hotel are false,” the official said.
“We have about 75 U.S. military personnel in Burkina Faso,” the official said, “We currently know of 1 U.S. military member who is embedded with French forces providing advice and assistance to French forces at the hotel.”
Burkina Faso is largely a Muslim country and has for years been spared from the violence carried out by Islamic extremist groups who were abducting foreigners for ransom in Mali and Niger. Then, last April, a Romanian national was kidnapped in an attack that was the first of its kind in the country.
The country also has been in growing political turmoil since its longtime president was ousted in a popular uprising in late 2014. Last September members of a presidential guard launched a coup that lasted only about a week. The transitional government returned to power until Burkina Faso’s November election ushered in new leaders.
Friday’s violence mirrored a devastating attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in neighboring Mali back in November that left 20 people dead. In that case, Malian troops — backed by French and American special forces — swarmed in to retake the building and free terrified guests and hotel staff during a siege that lasted more than seven hours.
The Bamako hotel attack also was claimed by a leader of AQIM, who said it had been carried out as a declaration of unity with Algerian militant Moktar Belmoktar’s extremist group Al-Mourabitoun, according to an audio speech that was distributed by SITE at the time. Belmoktar was a former leader in AQIM before starting his own group, which now has merged back with Al Qaeda.(Fox News)
Link: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/01/16/at-least-10-bodies-found-in-cafe-next-to-upscale-hotel-under-siege-by-al-qaeda-linked-militants.html?intcmp=hpbt1
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