DAKAR, Senegal -- A masked gunman opened fire on a restaurant in Mali's capital, Bamako, early Saturday, killing at least two Europeans -- a Frenchman and a Belgian -- and three Malians.
The gunman sprayed the restaurant, La Terrasse, with bullets, firing indiscriminately, according to residents and officials.
Saturday morning, a ranking security official said two people had been arrested in connection with the attack. "This was a terrorist attack. It's absolutely clear," said the official, an army officer who asked not to be quoted by name. The attack took place in Hippodrome, a neighborhood of the capital, that contains a number of bars and restaurants frequented by foreigners.
A festive night at La Terrasse, crowded with U.N. workers and other Europeans, turned into a pandemonium of bullets, blood and fear, witnesses said. A lone gunman burst into the restaurant, witnesses said, and began firing at tables where Europeans were seated.
"We were laughing, talking. Suddenly, these people came inside," said a Swedish health worker, Reidun Runften, who had been dancing at the bar. "It was boom, boom, boom," she said. "I was very close to the bar, and we just went under there. We didn't move because they were shooting a lot," she said.
When she looked up, a young Malian woman -- the girlfriend of a European sitting next to her -- was lying on the floor, blood flowing from her neck, Runften said.
While al-Qaida-linked terrorists took over Mali's sparsely populated desert north three years ago -- only to be driven out by French and Chadian forces a year later -- the distant capital has been spared such attacks. Bamako has been considered a terrorist-free zone, though it has been the scene of considerable political and civil unrest over the past three years, with a military coup in 2012 and frequent score-settling among army factions.
The attack took place early Saturday. Witnesses said the gunman killed a police officer on his way out the door of La Terrasse, then climbed into a car driven by an accomplice. Some reports on Malian websites said the attackers also hurled grenades. At Gabriel Toure Hospital, an official said there were numerous people wounded from the attack.
Saturday's assault in the capital is a rare occurrence in a region where Islamist militant attacks have generally been confined to the peripheries. The assault recalled the kidnapping in 2011 of two Frenchmen from a restaurant in Niamey, the capital of Niger. But these episodes are rare in West African capitals where security forces are concentrated and foreigners generally do not feel the terrorist menace.
"Things are not good in the capital today," said Moctar Mariko, head of the Malian Human Rights League. "It's the first time we've experienced this kind of terrorist attack in Bamako," Mariko said from Bamako. "To go into the streets with Kalashnikovs and grenades, this is unheard of," he said. "They didn't have particular targets, but they knew it was a restaurant frequented by Europeans and Americans. They shot at everything that moved," he said.
Mali's government is still working to get the north's numerous armed factions, some of them allied with Islamist militants, to give final approval to a peace settlement signed a week ago in Algiers. The northern conflict has barely affected the capital up until now.
"It seems that Bamako has been infiltrated by the Islamists, by terrorist groups. We are not used to this sort of barbarism," Mariko said.
The United Nations, which still has a large peacekeeping operation in Mali, said that two U.N. anti-mine experts had been wounded in the attack; the European Union said the Belgian who was killed was a security official with its delegation in Bamako.
French President Francois Hollande said in a statement Saturday that security had immediately been tightened around French facilities while the embassy set up a crisis cell to help expatriates.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said one Belgian was among the victims of the "cowardly act of terror."
Hollande said he "condemns with the greatest force the cowardly attack" against La Terrasse. Hollande said he will meet with Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to show his support, much as the Malian leader had gone to Paris to show his support in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January.
Information for this article was contributed by Cheick Diouara of The New York Times and by staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 03/08/2015