Three European shot dead in Mali Nightclub

Police Barricading the premises

Three Europeans were shot dead at a nightclub in Mali’s capital early Saturday in a suspected terror attack that came with thegovernment at a key stage of peace talks with militants in the restive north. At least one gunman entered the club in an area of Bamako popular with expatriates shortly after midnight and opened fire,according to police.
“This is a terrorist attack, although we’re waiting for clarification.Provisionally, there are four dead— one French national,a Belgian and two Malians,” a policeman said adding that the dead included a police officer who had been passing by the restaurant. A third European, whose nationality was not immediately clear, died on arrival at the Gabriel Toure hospital in Bamako, a source there said, adding that eight people were wounded. Firefighters carried the bodyof the French national from La Terrasse, a restaurant and nightclub in Bamako’s lively Hippodrome district. In the moments after the attack, the body of the police officer and a guard of a private home could be seen in the street outside, while a little further on the body of the Belgian national was also visible. Dozens of police officers secured the area but the few witnesses to the attack initially refused to testify, fearing reprisals.

- Two arrested -

A police source said two suspects had been arrested and were being interrogated, without revealing their identities or nationalities. French President Francois Hollande denounced “with the greatest force the cowardly attack”, according to a statement from the presidency.
It said Hollande would meet Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to offer Paris’s help to the former French colony, adding that security had been beefed up at the French embassy and other French installations in the country.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” said Didier Reynders, the foreign minister of Belgium, which has confirmed one of its nationals was among the dead.
EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said one of the victims worked with the European Union in Mali, where the 28-nation bloc runsa mission to assist police and national guardforces. The French embassy in Bamako issued a message to all French nationals in the city to exercise caution if they ventured out of their homes. Mali’s vast desert north is riven by ethnic rivalries and an Islamist insurgency, and has struggled for stability and peace since a coup in 2012. Jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda controlled an area of desert the size of Texas for more than nine months until a French-led military intervention in2013 that partly drove them from the region.

Source: AFP