Over 20 people dead and many injured after terrorist attack in a hotel in Burkina Faso

Commandos have stormed a four-star hotel in a bid to free hostages and end five hour siege after masked jihadi gunmen killed at least 20 with 'foreigners among the dead' in Burkina Faso's capital. Security forces stormed the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou's business district more than five hours after it was attacked by the jihadists. Hostages remained trapped inside the hotel, which was accidentally set on fire during the rescue attempt. According to initial reports, the masked militants set off suspected car bombs outside the hotel at 7.30pm before they stormed the hotel taking an unknown number of hostages.
The men fired in the air to disperse the gathering crowd and soon engaged in a fierce gunfight with the suspected jihadis as several cars burned around them. The West African country's foreign minister Alpha Barry ealier said security forces surrounded the hotel before they attempted to rescue hostages from the 146-room hotel, which is frequented by Westerners.

Injured witnesses said the attackers claimed to be from ISIS, but a local Al Qaeda affiliated group called AQIM has reportedly claimed the attack on the capital in West Africa, according to SITE Intelligence Group. In a message posted in Arabic on the militants' 'Muslim Africa' Telegram account, it said fighters had 'broke into a restaurant of one of the biggest hotels in the capital of Burkina Faso, and are now entrenched and the clashes are continuing with the enemies of the religion.'
The same AQIM affiliate, Al-Mourabitoun, was responsible for the attack on the Radisson Hotel in Mali's capital last November, which left 27 people dead. The four-star hotel is reportedly used by UN agency staff and is near a cafe called Cappucino, said to be popular with expats, although U.N. spokesman in Ouagadougou, Emile Kabore, told CNN he did not believe any U.N. staffers are currently staying at the hotel.
The French Embassy in Burkina Faso released a statement on its website calling incident a 'terrorist attack and urged its citizens to return home and to avoide the hotel, the Cafe Capuccino and Kwame N'Krumah Avenue.

Source: DailyMail