Local, French troops battle al-Qaeda in Burkina Faso hotel siege

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Heavy gunfire erupted early Saturday as forces from Burkina Faso and France worked to overtake a luxury hotel that had been seized by al-Qaeda militants the night before, seizing and killing at least 20 people.

Sixty-three hostages were rescued, 33 of them wounded, from the Burkinabe capital’s four-star Splendid hotel — popular with UN staff and foreigners — about two hours after the assault began.

The death toll was expected to rise further as Internal Affairs Minister Simon Compaore said Saturday that 10 bodies had already been found inside the Cappuccino Cafe, a restaurant located next to the Splendid Hotel. It was not clear how many people remained trapped.

“We don’t yet have a total tally of the dead. The Burkinabe forces are still combing the hotel,” Campaore told AFP. He said it was unclear how many attackers were still inside the 147-room hotel.

“The assault is ongoing with the Burkinabe forces supported by French special forces,” Communication Minister Remis Dandjinou said.

The harrowing attack was launched by the same extremists behind a similar siege at an upscale hotel in the Malian capital back in November that left 20 dead. It was not immediately known how many people remained inside the hotel as the morning call to prayer signaled a new day in this West African nation.

Dozens of French forces arrived overnight from neighboring Mali to aid the rescue. One US military member was embedded with French forces on the scene of the attack, and the United States was working to help provide France with surveillance and reconnaissance help, according to a US senior defense official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

French President François Hollande condemned the “odious and cowardly attack.”

“French forces are providing support to Burkinabe forces,” the president’s office said in a statement Saturday, adding that “the president expressed his full support to President Kabore.”

The local al-Qaeda affiliate known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility online as the attack was ongoing in downtown Ouagadougou at the 147-room hotel, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

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.

The group called the attack “revenge against France and the disbelieving West,” SITE said.

“We know that the gunmen won’t get out of the hotel alive,” said one witness, who gave only his first name, Gilbert. “Our country is not for jihadists or terrorists. They got it wrong.”

Burkina Faso, a largely Muslim country, had for years been mostly 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 Burkina Faso.

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.