A probe into last month’s hostage taking at a hotel in Bamako has been slowed by procedural differences between Malian investigators and their foreign counterparts, sources said on Saturday.
The investigation into the Nov. 20 attack on the Radisson Blu in the Malian capital, which left 20 people dead, is being carried out by Malian investigators as well as experts from the UN, France, Canada and Belgium.
“There are some avenues available, but at the moment, the inquiry is at a standstill,” a Malian security source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Foreign experts do not work “in the same manner” as their Malian colleagues and resuming the probe will require “changing working procedures,” she said, without elaborating.
The differences were confirmed by a security source within MINUSMA, the UN mission to Mali, who said: “The approaches to the inquiry are not the same.”
A Malian investigator, who also did not want to be named, said there had been “a divergence” over the surveillance of possible suspects currently at large.
The November siege left 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners, after gunmen took guests and staff hostage, security sources said.
The al-Murabitoun group, an al-Qaeda affiliate led by Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, claimed it was behind the deadly raid.
Another militant group from central Mali, the Macina Liberation Front, later also claimed responsibility.
Days later, Malian forces in Bamako arrested two people in connection with the attack, but no further arrests have been made.
Sources close to the inquiry said two other suspects were “actively” wanted.
A Malian investigator said officials were also awaiting results from a US inquiry regarding the weapons used by the attackers and their DNA.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion