At least one masked gunman sprayed bullets in a nightclub popular with foreigners in Mali’s capital early yesterday, killing at least five people including a French person and a Belgian national, officials and witnesses said.
France and Belgium condemned the attack at La Terrasse restaurant and bar in Bamako, while their foreign ministers confirmed the deaths of their nationals.
Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders denounced the “cowardly act of terror” and French Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius said that “everything must be done to find those responsible for this crime.”
Photo: Reuters
“This attack was led by at least one masked person who opened fire on clients,” the UN stabilization mission in Mali said in a statement.
Two Swiss soldiers serving as UN experts were among nine people wounded in the attack, the Swiss Ministry of Defense said.
Two people who were at the scene are being questioned to determine what happened, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Two gunmen ran out of the nightclub and jumped into a car driven by an accomplice, witness Hamadou Dolo said.
They ran into a police patrol about a block away and fired on the police car, killing its driver, a civilian in the street and a private security guard outside a house, Dolo said.
La Terrasse is in Bamako’s Hippodrome neighborhood — where many expatriates live — and the nightclub is popular on a Friday night for salsa dancing.
French President Francois Hollande’s office said five people had been killed and others injured, and that security had immediately been tightened around French facilities.
A statement from his office said the French embassy has set up a crisis cell to help expatriates in Bamako.
Hollande said that he would meet with Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to show his support, much as the Malian leader visited Paris to show his support in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January.
French forces led a military operation in early 2013 that largely expelled al-Qaeda-linked extremists from a vast area they had controlled in northeastern Mali.
The military operation in that region continues, and sporadic combat and clashes take place there.
Violence has been rare in Bamako despite the continued upheaval in the north.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS