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.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
US-CHINA SUMMIT: MOFA welcomed US reassurance of no change in its Taiwan policy; Trump said he did not comment when Xi talked of opposing independence US President Donald Trump yesterday said he has not made a decision on whether to move forward with a major arms package for Taiwan after hearing concerns about it from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Trump’s comments on Taiwan came as he flew back to Washington after wrapping up critical talks in which both leaders said important progress was made in stabilizing US-China relations even as deep differences persist between the world’s two biggest powers on Iran and Taiwan. “I will make a determination,” Trump said, adding: “I’ll be making decisions. But, you know, I think the last thing we need right
TAIWAN ISSUE: US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on the first day of meetings that ‘it wouldn’t be a US-China summit without the Taiwan issue coming up’ There were no surprises on the first day of the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, as the government reiterated that cross-strait stability is crucial to the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the world. As the two presidents met for a highly anticipated summit yesterday, Chinese state media reported that Xi warned Trump that missteps regarding Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict.” Trump arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a “great leader” and “friend,” and extending an invitation to visit the White House
RSS