Bmako - Hostages are released in their underwear after two EU soldiers and two guests were killed by militants at a luxury resort in Mali. Dozens of people were taken hostage during the attack on Sunday night but were released on Monday after security services stormed the complex near the Malian capital of Bamako. Mali's security Minister Salif Traore said local forces backed by French troops and UN soldiers said they rescued 36 guests and killed five men who he called terrorists. 'This was without doubt a terrorist attack,' he told station Radio France International. A Portuguese member of the EU's military training mission was among the dead according to foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. A Malian member of the EU's delegation was also killed, Mogherini said. Local authorities identified a third dead man as French-Gabonese while a security source said a third victim was Cameroonian. The resort was still cordoned off by late morning on Monday as a Malian anti-terrorist squad combed the area for the missing person. A U.N. mission helicopter was circling overhead. Traore said the militants had some accomplices who had not been killed or detained. On Sunday night, authorities reported that two of the assailants had been killed. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. French troops and a 10,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force have been battling to stabilise Mali, a former French colony, ever since France intervened in 2013 to push back jihadists and allied Tuareg rebels who had taken over the country's desert north a year earlier. Al Qaeda and other groups have claimed attacks on Western targets in Mali and the wider West Africa region in the past.(FA)
