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French military gather evidence at the nightclub. AP/Press Association Images

Two Europeans among five killed, as gunman opens fire in Mali nightclub

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

Updated at 4.20pm

FIVE PEOPLE INCLUDING two Europeans and a Malian police officer were killed in an assault on a Bamako nightclub today, in the first suspected attack targeting Westerners in a city braced for jihadist violence since 2012.

At least one masked gunman entered the club in an area of the Malian capital popular with expatriates around 1am and sprayed the venue with automatic gunfire and threw grenades, witnesses said.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, although suspicion is likely to focus on Islamist rebels operating in Mali’s vast desert north, which has struggled for stability since a coup three years ago.

Customers of La Terrasse, in Bamako’s lively Hippodrome district, described how the masked assailant arrived in a black four-wheel drive and headed to the upstairs restaurant and bar area to begin shooting.

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

“This is a terrorist attack, although we’re waiting for clarification. Provisionally, there are four dead — one French national, a Belgian and two Malians,” a policeman told AFP.

The United Nations MINUSMA peacekeeping force later clarified that a third Malian had died.

Hospital sources said eight people were wounded, including three Swiss nationals, one of them a woman.

An AFP correspondent at the scene in the aftermath witnessed the French victim being stretchered out of the venue.

In the moments after the attack, the body of a police officer and a guard of a private home could be seen in the street outside, while a little further on the body of the Belgian national was also visible.

Dozens of police officers secured the area but witnesses to the attack were initially refusing to testify, fearing reprisals.

‘Death to whites’ 

A police source said two suspects had been arrested and were being interrogated, without revealing their identities or nationalities.

French President Francois Hollande denounced “with the greatest force the cowardly attack”, according to a statement from the presidency which added that he would meet Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to offer Paris’s help to the former French colony.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” said Didier Reynders, the foreign minister of Belgium, which has confirmed one of its nationals was among the dead.

EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said one of the victims worked with the European Union in Mali, where the 28-nation bloc runs a mission to assist police and national guard forces.

The gunman killed the Belgian and two of the Malians in the street before entering the club, according to a diplomatic source.

“They reportedly shouted ‘Death to whites’ on entering the restaurant… It sounds like an attack against the presence of Europeans. Then they apparently targeted the French national,” the source said.

Zakaria Maiga, who told AFP he was a friend of the French victim, described how they been dancing upstairs when the gunshots rand out.

Maiga said there was immediate panic and he threw himself to the ground, before escaping the club and running to safety.

“Things happened too fast. I did not see the shooter,” he said.

Mali’s vast desert north is riven by ethnic rivalries and an Islamist insurgency.

Jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda controlled an area of desert the size of Texas for more than nine months until a French-led military intervention in 2013 that partly drove them from the region.

Militant uprisings 

The west African nation is also struggling with a militant Tuareg movement that has launched four uprisings since 1962 to fight the army over the territory they claim as their homeland and call Azawad.

But day-to-day life in the capital has been largely unaffected by the northern conflict, and bloodshed blamed on terrorism is rare in the city of 1.8 million.

“It’s the first attack of this type in Bamako,” said Pierre Boilley, an analyst specialising in sub-Saharan Africa.

But he added that it was not clear who the gunman’s target was, pointing out that locals were killed alongside the Europeans.

More than a dozen French citizens have been taken captive in Africa in recent years, but deaths of Westerners at the hands of jihadists in Mali remain an uncommon, if chilling, reminder of the country’s instability.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the 2013 murders of two French journalists shot dead in Mali’s desert town of Kidal — Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon.

Saturday’s attack came less than 24 hours after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Mali’s Tuareg rebel groups to sign a peace deal agreed nearly a week ago in Algeria.

The Malian government signed the agreement last weekend, along with some northern armed groups, but the main Tuareg rebel alliance, known as the Coordination, asked for more time.

- © AFP, 2015

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    Mute Tony Slap
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:37 AM

    Miserable comments from miserable people. Even when you get something for nothing you still moan. You are only happy when you are unhappy. Perhaps a mass underwater protest without breathing apparatuses might be in order.

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    Mute Rob O Reilly
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    Sep 18th 2013, 1:07 PM

    Do you realise that Dublin Port is a state company and the shareholder is the minister for transport ? This wasnt a gift to the state, we already own it ! they gave us something we own and we celebrate. Wow people are stupid.

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    Mute Fergal Reid
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    Sep 18th 2013, 4:55 PM

    Same old griping and grousing. Sometimes you can understand why Cromwell wanted to send us all west of the Shannon.

    Re: Bull Island, replacing the causeway with a bridge would do wonders for the flow of water and would prevent much of the bird sanctuary from silting up beyond rescue.

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    Mute Bernard Cantillon
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    Sep 18th 2013, 10:00 PM

    But it will now be in the hands of DCC, which means it will be owned by the people of Dublin

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    Mute Dom AcePlazo
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:34 AM

    Great idea.

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    Mute Mick Collins
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:19 AM

    A gift to the people of Dublin my arse. Its a money saving venture by Dublin Port thus offloading the cost of upkeep to Dublin City Council and ultimately the taxpayer.

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    Mute Barry
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:27 AM

    mick, its people like yourself that just like to shit on anything good, sure the same could be said for any gift to any country or city

    Kilkenny Castle was given to the city for a very small fee of 50 punts (token gesture really).
    But by your logic you can bitch and moan and say its a burden due to the costs that had to go into renovating the castle,

    France gave the statue of liberty to the USA as a gift, but sure you can bitch and moan the American’s have to pay to look after it.

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    Mute Mick Collins
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:29 AM

    Yawn !

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    Mute Bilbo Baggins
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:49 AM

    Sure if that was their outlook why wouldn’t they sell it to someone, or leave it as it is , they’re not exactly under any obligation to ‘upkeep’ it. At least if DCC have it there is a possibility of it being of use to the people of and visiting Dublin.

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    Mute Morticia
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:21 AM

    Any alterations to the port area could cause Bull Island disintegrate, it is ‘artificial’ as it formed as recently as 1820 -1860. On the other hand it could grow massively ,interesting times ahead for the Bay

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    Mute Darren Callaghan
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:52 AM

    It says it all in the article for goodness sake the key words being “community gain element” of their application for deeper berths for the cruise ships ,we don’t need all the bull all we need as a city of intelligent people who want the best for our city is a proper environmental study done to make sure dredging and construction work won’t do any lasting damage to environment and animal life in Dublin Bay and to make sure that ‘consultant’ fees and costs are within a realistic budget. My bet would be that if Dublin City Council had minimum role to play and Dublin Port Company took the lead on it things would go pretty smoothly

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    Mute Brian Donovan
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:24 AM

    Sounds like a bribe to me

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    Mute Paul Brophy
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:15 AM

    Hahaha genuine smiles in that photo.

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    Mute Declan Carr
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    Sep 18th 2013, 11:40 AM

    sounds like its going to be turned into a dump.

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    Mute Ireland Uncensored
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    Sep 18th 2013, 9:33 PM

    As lon as its still ok to go dogging or sell drugs there then i dont care who owns it

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