Grenade-toting gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital early Friday, killing at least three people and taking about 170 hostages — but spared some who could recite verses from the Quran, according to reports.
About 80 people who were in the 190-room Radisson Blu Hotel when the 10 gunmen stormed in shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” had been freed as of 8:30 a.m. EST.
The Brussels-based Rezidor Hotel group that operates the hotel earlier said the assailants had “locked in” 140 guests and 30 employees.
A UN official told CNN that the dead were two Malians and a French national.
Malian special forces were freeing hostages “floor by floor,” Malian army commander Modibo Nama Traore told the AP.
A hotel staffer who gave his name as Tamba Diarra said over the phone that grenades were used in the assault.
At least one guest reported that the assailants instructed him to recite the Quran before releasing him, Traore said.
President Barack Obama said after a meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak that he was monitoring the situation in Mali. The White House said Obama was briefed about the attack by his national security adviser, Susan Rice.
It was not immediately clear which Muslim extremist groups might be behind the attack, which unfolded a week after the attacks by Islamic State terrorists on Paris that killed 129 people and injured 350 others.
Several jihadi groups seized the northern half of Mali — a former French colony — in 2012 and were ousted from cities and towns by a French military intervention.
French President François Hollande said: “We should yet again stand firm and show our solidarity with a friendly country, Mali.”
A top French presidential official told the AP that French citizens were in the hotel but could not give more information.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said four Belgians were registered at the hotel. Their whereabouts were unknown.
Citing Chinese diplomats in Mali, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that about 10 Chinese citizens — all employees of Chinese companies working in Mali — were sheltering in their hotel rooms.
The China Daily newspaper reported that an unidentified witness said one Chinese citizen had been rescued.
Five Turkish Airlines personnel also were among the freed hostages, Turkey’s state-run news agency said.
Air France said 12 crew members — including two pilots — had been staying at the hotel. Airline spokeswoman Ulli Gendrot told the AP that “the crew is in a safe place.”
The UN mission said it was sending security reinforcements and medical aid to the scene.
Security sources said the gunmen were jihadists who had entered the hotel complex in a car with diplomatic plates.
Monique Kouame Affoue Ekonde of the Ivory Coast told the AP that she and six other people, including a Turkish woman, were escorted out by security forces as the gunmen rushed “toward the fifth or sixth floor.”
“I think they are still there. I’ve left the hotel and I don’t know where to go. I’m tired and in a state of shock,” she said.
Malian troops, heavily armed 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.
An AFP journalist reported seeing three freed hostages, including two women, who told him they had seen the body of a fair-skinned man sprawled on the floor of the hotel.
The attack Friday follows a daylong siege and hostage-taking at another hotel in August in the central Malian town of Sevare in which five UN workers were slain, along with four soldiers and four attackers.
Five people, including a French national and a Belgian, also were killed in an attack at a restaurant in Bamako in March in the first such incident in the capital, AFP reported.
Islamist groups have continued to wreak havoc in Mali despite a June peace deal between former Tuareg rebels in the north of the country and rival pro-government armed groups.
The northern part of the country fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to al Qaeda in 2012. They enforced a strict interpretation of sharia law on the region — with Bamako reeling from a military coup.
The Islamic extremists were mostly ousted from towns by a French-led military operation launched in early 2013, but they have since mounted attacks on security forces from desert hideouts.
In a recording authenticated by Malian authorities this week, a jihadist leader in Mali blasted the peace deal and called for additional attacks against France, which is helping national forces fight extremists.