BAMAKO, Mali -- Mali tightened security in its capital Saturday as investigators searched for al-Qaida-linked militants suspected of carrying out an attack on a luxury hotel that left 21 people dead, many of them foreigners.
Police and soldiers stood guard outside hotels, diplomatic missions and other key buildings in the capital city, Bamako, said Fode Sissoko, head of security for strategic locations at the Internal Security Ministry. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita declared a 10-day state of emergency and three days of national mourning after a Cabinet meeting held late Friday.
As many as 170 people were in the Radisson Blu hotel when gunmen burst into the lobby Friday morning spraying gunfire. Hours later, troops stormed the hotel and moved room to room evacuating guests. French and U.S. security forces aided the operation.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said six of its citizens died in the raid, while China's government said three Chinese were killed. An American citizen was also among the dead, the U.S. State Department said.
The attack was carried out by two men armed with AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades, Sissoko said. Those killed were 18 civilians, a policeman and the attackers.
Army Maj. Modibo Nama Traore said Saturday that security forces were hunting "more than three" suspects who may have been involved in the assault.
The attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako began at 7 a.m. Friday morning when two gunmen, approaching on foot, reached the entrance where five guards who had worked the night shift were waiting to be replaced by a new team, said Cheick Dabo, one of the guards.
The guards had just finished the morning prayer and had put their weapons -- a shotgun and two pistols -- away in their vehicle when the militants struck.
"We didn't see the jihadists until they started firing on us. We weren't concentrating, and we didn't expect it," he said.
Four of the guards were shot, one fatally, while Dabo managed to hide under a car.
Government critics have talked about the level of security at the hotel and in the country, but Interior Minister Salif Traore said Saturday that there was little to be done in the face of such determined attackers.
"They were ready to die, so the level of security is hardly important," he told reporters. "The Radisson hotel had a level of security that was considered good."
Once inside, at least one of the assailants headed for the kitchen and restaurant, said Mohammed Coulibaly, a cook at the hotel.
"I was busy cooking when a waitress started screaming at the door, 'They are attacking us, they are attacking us!'" Coulibaly said. "I asked everyone to go into the hallway, so everyone headed in that direction. Suddenly we heard the footsteps of the jihadists behind us, and there was total panic and people were running in every direction."
Coulibaly said he then hid in a bathroom with one of the guests, but one of the assailants saw him through a window and started firing, prompting him to run to the kitchen where he was nearly overwhelmed by smoke.
"I realized that if I didn't leave the kitchen, the smoke would kill me. So I waited until I didn't hear any noise, and I ran from the kitchen and escaped the hotel through a window," he said.
By that point, the assailants were heading upstairs where they took dozens of hostages, beginning a standoff with Malian security forces that lasted more than seven hours and claimed 19 lives in addition to their own. All but one of the victims were hotel guests.
Jihadi group confirmed
A member of al-Qaida in Africa confirmed Saturday that the attack had been carried out by a jihadi group loyal to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian operative for al-Qaida.
The al-Qaida member, who spoke via an online chat, said an audio message and a similar written statement in which the group claimed responsibility for the attack were authentic. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi groups, also confirmed the authenticity of the statement.
The al-Qaida member, who refused to be named for his protection, said Belmokhtar's men had collaborated with the Saharan Emirate of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, a unit that is active in the Sahara, in and around the desert outpost of Timbuktu, Mali. The cell is led by Yahya Abu Hammam, a longtime member of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb who has been responsible for numerous kidnappings of Western citizens in Mali and neighboring countries.
Belmokhtar has been reported killed at least twice in the past year, but U.S. officials say he is probably still at large.
In the audio recording, the group, known as Al-Mourabitoun, said it carried out the operation in conjunction with al-Qaida's branch in the Islamic Maghreb.
The recording was released to the Al-Jazeera network and simultaneously to Al Akhbar, a website in Mauritania that has frequently been used by jihadi groups active in northern Africa.
The recording states: "We, in the group of the Mourabitoun, in cooperation with our brothers in al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb, the great desert area, claim responsibility for the hostage-taking operation in the Radisson hotel in Bamako."
The messages went on to state that a cease-fire and release of the hostages were "predicated on the release of all the imprisoned mujahedeen in the prisons of Mali and the cessation of the aggression against our people in the north and center of Mali."
There was no such cease-fire as Malian forces, backed by French special operations soldiers, stormed the hotel to end the siege.
Peace Corps volunteer
The U.S. State Department confirmed that the American killed in the attack was 41-year-old Anita Ashok Datar of Takoma Park, Md.
As a Peace Corps volunteer, expert in global health and the mother of a 7-year-old boy, Datar devoted her life to caring for and helping others, her family said.
"We are devastated that Anita is gone," her family said in a statement issued through the State Department. "It's unbelievable to us that she has been killed in this senseless act of violence and terrorism."
Datar was a senior manager at Palladium Group, an international development organization with offices in Washington, her family said. As a public health expert, she focused on family planning and HIV issues, work that took her to Africa often in the past 15 years. She also worked in Asia and South America, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was among those mourning her death.
"Anita Datar was a bright light who gave help and hope to people in need around the world," Clinton said in a statement Saturday. "Anita represented the best of America's generous spirit."
Datar was the former partner of David Garten, an attorney who worked as a senior policy adviser to Clinton in the Senate.
"Everything she did in her life she did to help others -- as a mother, public health expert, daughter, sister and friend," the family's statement said. "And while we are angry and saddened that she has been killed, we know that she would want to promote education and health care to prevent violence and poverty at home and abroad, not intolerance."
The family said that of all her accomplishments, Datar was "most proud of her son." Her Facebook page is filled with pictures of the boy.
Born in Massachusetts, Datar grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers, her family said. She worked in Senegal with the Peace Corps for more than two years and earned master's degrees in public health and public administration from Columbia.
President Barack Obama, in a speech in Kuala Lumpur, extended his "deepest condolences" to the families of those killed in Mali.
"We're still working to account for Americans" who were at the hotel, Obama said.
China will step up cooperation with the international community to fight terrorism, President Xi Jinping said, according to a statement on the foreign ministry's website. Xi condemned the Friday attack that killed three Chinese nationals, according to the statement.
The United Nations Security Council also condemned the attack, saying the world must use all means to combat the threats that terrorist acts pose to global stability. The council earlier unanimously endorsed a resolution urging nations to fight the Islamic State.
Information for this article was contributed by Francois Rihouay, Colin Baker, David Whitehouse, Caroline Alexander, Olivier Monnier and Pauline Bax of Bloomberg News; by Baba Ahmed, Robbie Corey-Boulet, Paul Schemm and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Rukmini Callimachi and Nabih Bulos of The New York Times.
A Section on 11/22/2015