As the world mourns those killed in this mornings barbaric attacks in Brussels, you probably didn’t hear about the gunmen who stormed an EU military training base in Mali last night.
Witnesses have said that gunmen tried to force their way into a hotel, which was being used as a military training base, before guards returned fire.
According to The Independent, the guards at the Nord-Sud Hotel in Mali’s capital, Bamako, killed one attacker, but the fire fight continued for several minutes before two other suspects were arrested.
Sekou Tamboura who witnessed the attack said:
We were next to the Hamdallaye Cemetery when the first shot rang out, then there was a second and a third. There were a few seconds of pause, then it kicked off and did not stop. It was every man for himself.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack but Mali have increasingly been the target of Islamist attacks, some of them affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Colonel Diarran Kone said:
The security forces arrived on the scene a half hour ago. I don’t have more information than that for the moment.
Azalaï Hotels, which runs the Nord-Sud Hotel, later posted on Twitter that the building had been secured.
Fortunately, no EU personnel were harmed in the attack.
