Mali hunts jihadist nightclub killers

Malian security forces mobilised Sunday to hunt the killers of two Europeans and three locals in a nightclub attack claimed by jihadists — the first to target Westerners in the capital.

A Frenchman, a Belgian, a Malian policeman and two others died early Saturday when a masked gunman burst into the nightclub in the capital Bamako, spraying automatic gunfire and throwing grenades.

Al-Murabitoun, a jihadist group run by leading Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has claimed responsibility in an audio recording carried by Mauritanian news agency Al-Akbar.

The recording said the operation was carried out by “brave combatants from Al-Murabitoun to avenge our prophet against the unbelieving West which has insulted and mocked him”.

The investigation was expected to focus not only on tracking the gunman but also an accomplice witnesses reported seeing during the attack and a black four-wheel drive vehicle apparently used for the getaway.

The United Nations peacekeeping force, which has around 10,000 personnel in Mali, said it has made investigators and crimes scenes experts available to the authorities.

Police earlier announced they had arrested two Malians soon after but later said the pair were not involved, describing them as “not terrorists, but bandits”.

Customers of La Terrasse, in the lively Hippodrome district, said the gunman arrived in the car and headed to the upstairs restaurant and bar area where they began shooting.

Reports later emerged that he had already killed the Belgian and two of the Malian victims before entering the venue.

As he left he lobbed two grenades at a security patrol and one went off, killing the policeman, witnesses said.

“The killer came here because there were foreigners. He wanted to kill foreigners, that’s for sure,” a waiter at the venue told AFP.