Al Qaeda gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital Friday, seizing 170 hostages and leaving the building strewn with corpses — after picking off those who could not recite Koran verses, officials and witnesses said.
As many as 20 people, including one American, died in the siege at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, reports said.
US citizen Anita Ashok Datar, 41, had been working there for a nonprofit. She grew up in Flanders, NJ, and attended Rutgers and then Columbia, where she earned an MA in public health.
As many as 10 terrorists drove onto the grounds of the hotel in vehicles with fake diplomatic plates. They then opened fire with Kalashnikov rifles.
Carlos Lumu, an eyewitness whose girlfriend works at the hotel, described the first moments.
“In the morning, I heard a lot of gunfire, lots and lots of shots, but no explosions. I saw two people injured, being carried to the ambulances and to the hospital,” he told The Independent.
Another witness told France24: “I was inside. I saw the dead bodies in the hall. It is horrible what is happening inside the hotel.”
Malian troops, assisted by US special forces from the nearby American Embassy, as well as French soldiers, went floor by floor in the 160-room hotel to free hostages. The US troops helped rescue six Americans
Cmdr. Modibo Nama Traore of the West African nation’s army said at least one guest reported that the attackers told him to recite verses from the Koran before freeing him.
Al-Mourabitoun, an al Qaeda offshoot led by Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, claimed responsibility in a recorded statement carried by Al-Jazeera.
The attack in the former French colony comes a week after ISIS terrorists killed 130 people and injured 350 more in attacks in Paris.
In 2013, France launched a military operation against jihadists who had seized northern Mali.
France has more than 1,000 troops in Mali, a key battleground of Operation Barkhane, a counterterror mission spanning five countries in Africa’s Sahel region.
Datar was in the Peace Corps in Senegal for two years and spent much of her career working to advance global health — focusing on population, reproductive health, family planning and HIV, the State Department said.
She was a senior manager at the Palladium Group, which focuses on helping poor women get health care, and a founding member of Tulalens — a nonprofit group linking underserved communities with quality health care, according to the statement.
Datar is survived by her son, her parents and her brother.
“We are devastated that Anita is gone — it’s unbelievable to us that she has been killed in this senseless act of violence and terrorism,” her brother Sanjeev Datar said in a statement Friday.
“Anita was one of the kindest and most generous people we know. She loved her family and her work tremendously. Everything she did in her life she did to help others — as a mother, public health expert, daughter, sister and friend.
“And while we are angry and saddened that she has been killed, we know that she would want to promote education and health care to prevent violence and poverty at home and abroad, not intolerance.”
With Post Wire Services