3 killed, 3 injured in hotel siege in central Mali

Gunmen stormed a hotel in central Mali in an apparent attempt to kidnap Westerners, killing at least three people and seizing hostages in an ongoing standoff with the Army.

Among the dead were two Malian soldiers, while the body of a white man was seen lying sprawled outside the hotel in the town of Sevare, military sources said.

Malian troops surrounded the hotel and shot dead one of the attackers who was wearing an explosive belt, the military source said.

The Friday attack is suspected to be an attempt to kidnap Western hotel guests. Registered at the hotel were at least five foreigners - three South Africans, a French national, and a Ukrainian.

"The Fama (Malian armed forces) have sealed off the area... and the operation is still going on," one military source said. "The army is trying to find (the attackers) and remove them," a Mali army official told AFP from Bamako.

The official said the operation was delicate because of the presence of guests in the hotel.

Meanwhile, Col. Souleymane Maiga, an army spokesman, said extremists had attacked Debo, another hotel in Sevare, and were exchanging fire with the Malian army forces.

Lt. Col. Diarran Kone, Mali Defense Ministry adviser, said that forces had surrounded the hotel. “There are people inside the hotel that we are trying to save,” he said.

Several foreigners have been kidnapped by militants in Mali in recent years.

The country plunged into turmoil after President Amadou Toumani Toure was overthrown in a military coup on March 22, 2012. The coup leaders said they staged the coup d’état in response to the government’s inability to contain a rebellion in the northern Mali.

Extremist attacks have long been concentrated in the north, but began spreading at the beginning of the year to the center of the country and, in June, to the south, near the borders with Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.

In January 2013, French soldiers were deployed to Mali under the pretext of putting an end to the crisis in the West African country, a former colony of France.

Unrest rages on across Mali despite the presence there of an 11,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, which has been stationed in the country since July 2013, as well as 1,000 French forces.

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