Gunman in Mali stormed a hotel used by U.N. peacekeeping personnel Friday, initiating a standoff with troops in a nation facing escalating attacks by Islamist militants, a military official said.
Security forces surrounded the hotel in Sevare, about 370 miles northeast of the capital Bamako, and exchanged gunfire with the attackers after an apparent attempt to seize hostages.
At least seven people were killed, a military spokesman, Souleymane Maiga, told the Reuters news agency. Among the dead were four Malian soldiers, two attackers and one “foreigner,” he said, but gave no further details.
Maiga also said the gunmen may hold three Russian pilots in the hotel compound. But a statement by the Russian Embassy in Mali said the reports were false, Russia’s TASS news agency said.
The hotel is used by members of a U.N. peacekeeping mission established in 2013 as part of efforts to stabilize the vast country.
Earlier, the spokesman said that at least four U.N. staff members from the peacekeeping mission escaped, Reuters reported. Citizens from South Africa, Ukraine and France have been at the hotel, he said.
A loose coalition of tribal rebels and militants with links to al-Qaeda took control of large areas of Mali in 2012 before being driven back by a French-led military force.
Islamist militants carry out regular attacks against local and foreign troops in Mali, which stretches from the Sahara to West Africa and includes the ancient trade center of Timbuktu, a U.N. world heritage site.
On Monday, a regional militant group known as al-Qaeda in the Magreb, or AQIM, asserted responsibility for an assault on a base that killed 11 Malian soldiers in the central Timbuktu region.
Other attacks and kidnappings-for-ransom are staged by rival Islamist factions, including a group known as Ansar Dine that once had control of Timbuku.
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