Putin for global effort against terror

Bamako, November 21 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he wanted global cooperation to combat terrorism in the wake of an Islamist militant attack on a luxury hotel in Mali that killed 19 persons, including six Russians.

The bloodshed at the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali, a former French colony, evoked the problems French troops and UN peacekeepers face in restoring security and order in a West African state that has battled rebels and militants in its weakly governed desert north for years.

Jihadist groups Al Mourabitoun and Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for the attack, which ended when Malian commandos stormed the building and rescued 170 people, many of them foreigners. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said two militants were killed in the commando operation. His government increased security at strategic points around Bamako at the start of a declared 10-day state of emergency.

“Mali will not shut down because of this attack. Paris and New York were not shut down and Mali won’t be. Terrorism will not win,” Keita said during a visit to the hotel on Saturday.

Six employees of Russian regional airline Volga-Dnepr were killed, Russia’s foreign ministry said, while six others were rescued.

Putin sent a telegram of condolences to Keita and said “the widest international cooperation” was needed to confront global terrorism, according to a statement by the Kremlin. Chinese President Xi Jinping condemned the “cruel and savage” attack, whose dead included three Chinese executives of a state-run railway firm. 

One American and a deputy from a regional parliament in Belgium were also killed in the Bamako hotel attack, though French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he was not aware of any French nationals killed. — Reuters