Author Topic: At least three dead as gunmen seize 170 hostages at Mali hotel  (Read 316 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

rangerrebew

  • Guest
At least three dead as gunmen seize 170 hostages at Mali hotel
« on: November 20, 2015, 11:03:07 am »
At least three dead as gunmen seize 170 hostages at Mali hotel
By Serge Daniel (AFP)     2 hours ago in World
 

At least three hostages were killed as gunmen went on a shooting rampage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital Bamako on Friday, seizing 170 guests and staff, the security ministry said.

Automatic weapons fire could be heard from outside the 190-room hotel in the city-centre, where security forces have set up a security cordon, an AFP journalist said.

Security sources said the gunmen were "jihadists" who had entered the hotel compound in a car that had diplomatic plates.

"It's all happening on the seventh floor, jihadists are firing in the corridor," one security source told AFP.

Malian soldiers, police and special forces were on the scene as a security perimeter was set up, along with members of the UN's MINUSMA peacekeeping force in Mali and the French troops fighting jihadists in west Africa under Operation Barkhane.
 

The Rezidor Hotel Group, the US-based parent company of Radisson Blu, said two people were holding 170 people hostage.

The company said it was "aware of the hostage-taking that is ongoing at the property today, 20th November 2015. As per our information two persons have locked in 140 guests and 30 employees".

It added in a statement: "Our safety and security teams and our corporate team are in constant contact with the local authorities in order offer any support possible to reinstate safety and security at the hotel."

Six Turkish Airlines personnel were among those trapped, a Turkish official said.

"We have confirmed that there are six personnel from Turkish Airlines" in the hotel, the official told AFP. A spokesman for the country's flag-carrier airline THY declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

- Attacks despite peace deal -

The shooting at the Radisson follows a nearly 24-hour siege and hostage-taking at another hotel in August in the central Malian town of Sevare in which five UN workers were killed, along with four soldiers and four attackers.

Five people, including a French citizen and a Belgian, were also killed in an attack at a restaurant in Bamako in March in the first such incident in the capital.
 
Islamist groups have continued to wage attacks in Mali despite a June peace deal between former Tuareg rebels in the north of the country and rival pro-government armed groups.

Northern Mali fell in March-April 2012 to Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist groups long concentrated in the area before being ousted by an ongoing French-led military operation launched in January 2013.

Despite the peace deal, large swathes of Mali remain beyond the control of government and foreign forces.

The website of the Radisson Blu in Bamako says it offers "upscale lodging close to many government offices and business sites", serving as "one of the city's most popular conference venues" with "a stunning 508-square-metre ballroom and meeting rooms".

Radisson Blu, an upscale brand of the Radisson hotel chain, has more than 230 luxury hotels and resorts worldwide.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/shooting-under-way-at-radisson-hotel-in-bamako-afp/article/449922#ixzz3s1pWPf83

rangerrebew

  • Guest
Re: At least three dead as gunmen seize 170 hostages at Mali hotel
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2015, 01:22:29 pm »
Why Islamic terror in Mali bodes very ill for Europe

November 20, 2015 by Steve Berman Leave a Comment
 

Overnight, Islamic terrorists took 170 hostages at a hotel in Mali.  Why would Islamic terrorists take hostages in Mali?  Most Americans don’t even know what continent Mali is on (Africa), or where it is in Africa (I admit, I had to look on a map).  What’s special about Mali?  Turns out, quite a bit.

Mali is former French colony, now an Islamic state.  It’s a poor—very, very poor land-locked country.  Let’s unpack all the history and current entanglements and see where it leads.

Going back into history, from the Left’s viewpoint, those Western Christian colonialists who try to spread their filthy Western values to “savages” in other places—you know, the Crusaders that President Obama keeps bringing up—they took the magical empire of Mali and incorporated it into their filthy empire.  So to them, the hostage-taking is just payback (like every other terror attack).

According to Wikipedia (it’s all I had time to Google), the Mali Empire at one time had a “flourishing of mathematics, astronomy, literature, and art.”  This was in the year 1300.  Since then, it has slid down a sort of corruption-laced malaise into abject poverty.

France seized Mali sometime in the 1880’s as part of their strategy to build an empire controlling all the caravan routes through north Africa from the Niger River to the Nile.

Contrary to the Left’s “Crusader” narrative, in the 1880’s, the French Republic was certainly not Christian (having thrown that elephant from its back in the French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic periods).  Nope: France was after a pure power play, a feeding-frenzy in Africa, along with Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy, Russia and Spain.  The United States never participated in this continental rape; in the late 1800’s, we had our own problems.

Mali gained its independence in 1960, about the time the rest of Europe’s colonial domination of Africa fell apart.  In 1991, a coup led to Mali to become a “democracy,” based on Sharia law.  Yes, that’s a contradiction, but make no mistake: Mali is an Islamic state, but by French standards, a “tame” one.

The last time Islamists attempted a coup in Mali, the French military stepped in like an angry stepdad (under cover of a U.N. Security Council resolution) with their fighter jets and infantry and put things right.

This attack is a clear signal to the French.  ISIS attacks Paris, the French attack ISIS, and ISIS attacks Mali, which is largely controlled by French interests.  The guests and staff at the Radisson probably speak French (as they do in many central African nations).

So, today, the Malian military stormed the hotel and freed some of the hostages taken by terrorists, who shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they took over the Radisson Blu hotel.  (An aside: it’s likely the Malian military is also made up of Muslims.)

The message: it’s open season on the French.  And soon it will be open season on the Germans, British, and the rest of the E.U.  Islamists like Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a terrorist since the 1970’s and one of the leaders of the 2013 coup attempt in Mali, are still around, biding their time, and eager to work with ISIS, which is the terrorist haven of their dreams—the SPECTRE they’ve been waiting for all these years.  Belmokhtar fled to Libya in 2013, and now hangs out somewhere in Algeria or Chad.

This whole situation brings to mind former Libyan “maximum leader” Muammar Gaddafi’s pronouncement in 2006: “We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe—without swords, without guns, without conquest—will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”

ISIS isn’t satisfied with a “few decades.”  They are a cancer on three continents, and spreading rapidly to the rest of the world, and they are making Africa their new lever to overthrow its former European masters.

Sadly, all out war will soon descend upon Europe once again.

http://www.sgberman.com/2015/11/20/why-islamic-terror-in-mali-bodes-very-ill-for-europe/
« Last Edit: November 20, 2015, 01:23:06 pm by rangerrebew »

Offline aligncare

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 25,916
  • Gender: Male
Re: At least three dead as gunmen seize 170 hostages at Mali hotel
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2015, 02:02:44 pm »

Problem. American liberals refuse to acknowledge ISLAM – at least a significant portion of it – is at war with the West.

Lest we are willing to tolerate 1000's of Bataclan's across America, we had better come together and ourselves get on war footing.

No Syrian refugees! Why import enemy combatants, provide them welfare and food stamps, while they build sleeper cells in wait for the day they attack and kill Americans?

Offline Relic

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4,967
  • Gender: Male
Re: At least three dead as gunmen seize 170 hostages at Mali hotel
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2015, 02:28:42 pm »
Problem. American liberals refuse to acknowledge ISLAM – at least a significant portion of it – is at war with the West.

Lest we are willing to tolerate 1000's of Bataclan's across America, we had better come together and ourselves get on war footing.

No Syrian refugees! Why import enemy combatants, provide them welfare and food stamps, while they build sleeper cells in wait for the day they attack and kill Americans?

This new breed of politically correct Americans are p*****s. These Americans aren't really aware of what they're asking for, but let the terrorism begin, and the body count rise, and you'll hear all the babies crying to their nanny state begging for it to stop.