Assault begins at second hotel in capital of Ouagadougou after up to 20 killed in hotel popular with UN staff and foreigners
Fire and smoke rising from the Splendid hotel in Ouagadougou where militants are holding hostages. Photograph: Reuters
Nadia Khomami and agencies in Ouagadougou
Burkina Faso security forces have freed more than 120 hostages from a hotel seized by al-Qaida-linked fighters in the capital of Ouagadougou, but a second assault has begun at another hotel nearby, according to reports.
“Three jihadists were killed. They were an Arab and two black Africans,” Simon Compaore, the country’s security minister, said of the raid which concluded early on Saturday morning. Up to 20 people had been killed and 33 people wounded in the attack, with forces still determining the number of casualties.
Islamic extremists invaded the Splendid hotel and the Cappuccino cafe on Friday night. The militants took control of the five-storey hotel, which is popular with UN staff and foreigners, burning cars outside and firing in the air to drive back crowds.
FacebookTwitterPinterest Vehicles on fire outside the Splendid Hotel. Photograph: Reuters Tv/Reuters
Security forces freed at least 60 hostages when they first stormed the building, with commandos continuing to fight a floor-by-floor battle with the gunmen several hours after the initial attack.
It was not immediately known how many people remained inside the Splendid Hotel but security officials said 126 people had been freed.
Dozens of French forces arrived overnight from neighbouring Mali to aid in the rescue. One member of the US military was embedded with the French forces at the scene, and the US was working to provide France with surveillance and reconnaissance help, according to a US senior defence official.
FacebookTwitterPinterest French gendarmes tend to a wounded man outside the hotel. Photograph: Nabila El Hadad/AFP/Getty Images
The source told Associated Press that there were about 75 US troops in Burkina Faso: 15 assigned to the embassy and about 60 assisting the French military.
An al-Qaida affiliate known as AQIM, or al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, claimed responsibility online during the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. In a message posted in Arabic on the militants’ “Muslim Africa” Telegram account, it said fighters “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 attack follows a raid on a hotel in neighbouring Mali last November, in which 20 people died, including 14 foreigners, as well as attacks by militants in other countries in west Africa.
One witness told Associated Press he saw four men attack the hotel and neighbouring cafe at about 7.30pm. Another witness said that when security forces arrived, they turned around rather than confronting the attackers.
Vital Nounayon, a waiter at a restaurant across the street from the hotel, said: “We had just opened and there were a few customers we started to serve when we heard gunshots ... There were three men shooting in the air.
“Lots of people left their cars and motorcycles and ran. The attackers set fire to the vehicles. They also fired on the Cappuccino cafe across from the hotel before setting it on fire,” he said, adding that the attackers wore turbans.
Medical personnel moved the wounded away from the front of the hotel, a Reuters witness said.
Robert Sangare, the director of Ouagadougou’s university hospital centre, said: “We have received around 15 wounded people. There are people with bullet wounds and people who are injured because of falls.”
He said the patients had told him they had seen around 20 bodies in the hotel.
The French embassy said on its website that a “terrorist attack” was under way and urged people to avoid the area.
France’s ambassador to the country said a curfew had been put in place in Ouagadougou from 11pm to 6am. Gilles Thibault said on his Twitter account that the embassy had set up a crisis unit for its citizens. More than 3,500 French nationals live in the former colony, according to foreign ministry data.
An Air France flight from Paris to Ouagadougou was diverted to neighbouring Niger.
The hotel is sometimes used by French troops with Operation Barkhane, a force based in Chad and set up to combat Islamic militants across Africa’s vast, arid Sahel region.
It is understood to be the first time militants have targeted Ouagadougou.
A senior member of AQIM had in December called for Muslims in several countries, including Burkina Faso, to wage jihad. AQIM, along with two other groups, claimed responsibility for killing 20 people and taking hostages in the capital of neighbouring Mali in November.
The US embassy in Ouagadougou tweeted: “We are closely following the situation downtown.”
Burkina Faso, a largely Muslim country, has been in 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.
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