At least 18 people have died after gunmen held 170 people hostage in a hotel in Mali

People fleeing from the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, Mali, on Friday.
Mali's security minister has said that the remaining hostages have been freed
after gunmen raided a Radisson Blu hotel in the country's capital, Bamako.

At least 18 people were reportedly killed after the gunmen stormed the building while shouting Islamic slogans, though a UN official said peacekeepers saw at least 27 bodies in the hotel.

Two of the gunmen were reportedly killed after security forces raided the hotel. 

One of the freed hostages told France 24: "I saw dead bodies in the lobby. I was hiding in my room. There were several minutes and then security forces smashed my door and we left."

Supporters of a group affiliated with al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack via Twitter on Friday, Reuters reported.

The attack on the Radisson Blu hotel — a 190-room hotel popular with Western business executives, diplomats, and politicians that lies just west of the city center in the former French colony — came a week after Islamic State terrorists killed 129 people in Paris.

Six US citizens are among those who were freed.

Malian and UN forces carried out joint security operations in a bid to secure the hotel. The UN posted on Twitter saying it was supplying security reinforcements as well as medics at the site. Meanwhile, France has been providing logistical support. 

US Special Forces also helped free hostages from the hotel, where attackers reportedly barricaded themselves in on the seventh floor.

"We will use all the means available to us on the ground to free the hostages," French President Francois Hollande said from Paris ahead of a speech he was giving on climate change talks.

Fifty elite French counter-terrorism officers reached the hotel in Bamako on Friday afternoon. The Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN) is a French unit dedicated to the tackling of hostage situations.

An AirFrance crew of 12 people was also safely evacuated, with the airline cancelling all of Friday's flights to and from the city according to Reuters.

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In this TV image taken from Mali TV ORTM, security forces crouch down outside the Radisson Blu Hotel hotel in Bamako, Mali, Friday Nov. 20, 2015.

The gunmen took the hotel floor by floor, and according to a report in The Telegraph, were freeing hostages if they could recite verses from the Qur'an.

A famous Guinean singer who was among those taken hostage, but has since been freed, said he heard the attackers in the next room speaking English.

"I heard them say in English 'Did you load it?', 'Let's go'," Sékouba 'Bambino' Diabate, told Reuters in Conakry. "I wasn't able to see them because in these kinds of situations it's hard."

Source:businessinsider