20/11/2015 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today. The headlines:

Officials in Mali say no more hostages are inside after a special

forces operation against the Islamist gunmen stormed the hotel.

Forces are going from room to room to find the gunmen.

They are holed up the upper floors of the building.

As Paris mourns its dead a week on, police confirm

a third body was found in the flat that was raided after the attacks.

And European Union ministers agree to strengthen

the EU's external borders, with tighter checks on all passengers

Mali officials say suspected gunmen who stormed a hotel in the capital,

It's thought at least 18 people have been killed,

but UN peacekeepers are saying that they have seen 27 bodies.

We have not been able to confirm those reports.

Special forces raided the Radisson Blu

after up to ten gunmen stormed the building, firing automatic weapons

Initially, the gunmen seized up to 170 people.

The US-owned hotel is popular with foreign businesses

A group affiliated to al-Qaeda says it's behind the attack.

Our diplomatic correspondent James Robbins has the latest.

Combined forces from Mali, the United Nations, France and some

US special forces moved in on the hotel as soon as it was clear.

Gunmen with grenades had shot their way in and taken hostages.

The license plate was that of a diplomatic car.

That is why they didn't check them out.

When security forces got inside the hotel, they immediately

I heard gunshots very early in the morning.

I thought it was firecrackers and did not realise it was

a hostage situation. Thank God we are safe.

The soldiers were very professional. They took good care of us.

I tried something, but then the soldier said, "Stay in the room!"

Soon, security forces were bringing out dozens of hotel guests and

Some reported the extremists shouting, "Allahu Akbar!"

and releasing those who could recite verses from the Koran.

The attackers would have known that the luxury hotel,

close to the diplomatic quarter of Mali's capital, Bamako,

An eyewitness told the BBC it was just before 7am

when the attackers arrived in a large car with diplomatic plates.

There were apparently up to 13 gunmen.

At one point, they held up to 170 hostages.

Mali's security forces had responded quickly, working with French elite

police units, some UN blue-helmeted soldiers,

Soon, there were reports of some hostages escaping,

including three Turkish Airlines staff, and of many others being

rescued by security forces as they moved through the hotel, floor by

floor. In Paris, the French president Francois Hollande made no

direct link with the attacks on his capital a week ago, but repeated his

conviction that greater force was needed against violent extremism.

We see once again that the terrorists want to make

their horrific mark everywhere they can, by killing, by murder.

So we must be firm and show our solidarity towards

In Mali, some survivors were still in shock.

It remained unclear if all of the extremists had been found

and stopped. James Robbins, BBC News.

We spoke a short time ago to Mali-based journalist

Francois Rihouay as events were continuing to unfold in the hotel.

We have now gone back to him for an update. The situation is looking to

have calmed down. It is quite in front of the hotel. Night is

falling. The Mali security forces and special forces are now coming,

but the last time we spoke, there was a huge panic movement because

people aware really on edge. It looks like now the final death toll

figure is 18 dead, according to a high security official I just spoke

to. Two terrorists were killed during the operation. Two terrorists

dead, but we do not know for sure the number of other attackers. What

is happening with that? We still have to figure out. The

investigation will start and that will be much longer. We will

investigate how they could get to this hotel and get this diplomatic

card, the black four by four they used to get into the hotel.

According to one of the French military sources I spoke to, it was

two attackers. There were only two attackers? Yeah according to the

people I spoke to. The last attack in Bamako when a restaurant was

attacked and killed five people, other people were not directly

involved in the attack but where helping and financing, hosting the

attackers. Francois, you report from Bamako, you are local to the area.

Does it surprise you that something like this has happened? Not that

surprising, since all Mali authorities have said that since the

French intervention in the 20 13th, they have all this said it would be

a permanent threat, especially in the capital. The surprising thing

tonight is to figure out that it is the main hotel, the one thought to

be one of the most safe in the capital that has been attacked. That

the attackers could get in so easily... Foreigners who used to

come, it is frightening. Just a line from the French defence Minister,

because he says at this stage, no French nationals were killed in the

Mali hotel attacks. But from the French defence minister.

Today's attack comes after a string of threats by Islamist

groups against the government and western interests in Mali.

French forces have been stationed there since 2013 when they fought

successfully to push back Islamic militants who were controlling large

Our security correspondent Frank Gardner has more details.

Parts of Mali have been a battle ground for more than four years.

The UN's 10,000 peacekeepers there are fully stretched in this

Their commander wants Europe to do more if terrorism is to be stopped.

Mali is important because it has a regional impact

and it also has a global impact, of course on terrorism and so on.

It would be interesting to see a larger European engagement

It was swift military intervention by front that stopped most of Mali

Jihadists like these have been able to move across regional borders

It all began with the collapse of Libya in 2011 and the fall

Weapons and insurgents flooded into the Sahara.

In Mali, Islamist rebels took over most of the north of the country

French forces pushed them back but pockets of rebels and jihadists

In nearby Nigeria, the jihadist group Boko Haram has

wreaked havoc, killing more people last year than Islamic State did.

And in Algeria, where Western workers were killed recently in a

hostage siege, remnants of Al-Qaeda survived in the mountains.

Further south, experts blame poor governance.

I think it is the same story all over Africa.

They are able to grow because, in most of the African states, the

There are thousands of young people who are unemployed and can be easily

Mali will need more than military intervention to stop terrorism.

It needs secure borders, better governance and a stable

economy if more young men are not to be drawn into the murderous ideology

The Carlson Rezidor hotel group, which owns and operates the Radisson

Blu Hotel in Bamako, has set up an emergency family information number.

It's based in France. The number to call is:

Stay up to date with the latest news out of Mali via the BBC live page.

Their update their very regularly coming from various sources as well

as testimony and interviews. Just head to the BBC website.

We turn now to what happened in Mali today to what happened in Paris one

week ago. Let me shortly be seen at Place de la Republique, where people

are holding flowers and candles. People coming out in force as part

of a display of defiance as the time of 9:20pm local time approaches.

That was the time those first terrible attacks happened one week

ago exactly. People trying to show they are not afraid. They are coming

onto the street and making sure their voices are heard. It is one

week since the terrible things we saw. Inevitably, people are turning

their minds back to where they wear at this time last week. Some of them

were already inside the Stade de France Stadium to watch the national

team. Some were heading to bars and restaurants in this area. Some to

have a meal and meet friends. Some thought they were lucky enough to

have a ticket here at the batter clan to see the Californian band

Eagles Of Death Metal. In the darkest corners of their minds, they

could not have imagined what would unfold over the course of the next

four hours. Extraordinary cruelty and barbarity. Eight, nine, possibly

ten gunmen on the loose in Paris. We have been reporting it through the

course of the week how that has affected the city. Today, the death

toll went up to 130. One more person has died and still 90 people in

intensive care. Some 200 people injured, lives wrecked and destroyed

by the senselessness of what we saw. Behind me, a steady stream of people

filtering past the batter clan. Thousands of bouquets being laid all

along these railings. -- filtering past the batter clan theatre. Left

by friends and family and ordinary members of the public. Different

flags demonstrating the different nations and nationalities of those

who have come to pay their respects. Today has largely been about the

politics, because the interior minister Bernard Cazenove has been

to meet his colleagues in Brussels. They are talking about the need for

tighter controls at the borders of the 26th-country Schengen zone. They

decided those controls will be stiffened. Anyone coming into the

Schengen zone, whether or not they hold an EU passport, will be checked

and vetted properly and cross checked against the list of names

that they hold. There will also be tighter checks on the borders in

France in line with the three-month state of emergency which is now in

place, approved by the Senate just ate few hours ago. Intelligence

agencies talking about greater sharing of information in real-time,

so new databases to with that process. Here is our Paris

correspondence. They queued at Paris' Central Mosque

today for the simple comfort And no one, no matter how old

or how familiar, was exempt. It was a war zone,

just like a war zone. Not only by the type of injuries,

bullet injuries, ballistic trauma, but also because we had a huge

number of patients at the same time. And for different challenges,

different measures. The response from France this week,

a seven-hour raid In amongst the forces there was

Hugo, who told his story to the BBC. When we got to the third floor,

we put explosives on the door, but when we detonated them,

the door did not totally collapse. We had to put another charge in,

but before we could detonate that, Since the attacks here last week,

French forces have carried out almost 800 searches

and more than 100 arrests, but security on each street corner

is not the same as feeling safe. For a week,

the dead have been remembered here Tonight, they will be

honoured with defiance. Well-known artists

and musicians have called on Parisians to pack the city's

bars and restaurants at 9:20pm, Still forensically going on here in

front of the theatre. Not much to see. Frenzied work going on at the

apartment in Mali, where that leads took place on Wednesday. In

Saint-Denis. We suppose it ring leader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was in

that apartment. We now know that he was filmed within the metro system

where the black car was dumped on the evening of the attacks.

Interesting that he was there at around 10pm, just as the attacks are

getting underway here, on the opposite side of the road. We also

know that the intelligence agencies were following his cousin, this

supposedly suicide bomber. She was already under investigation for

drugs. It was a drugs investigation. They thought they would go back and

see who she was in contact with. Sure enough, on choose day, she was

spotted going into this apartment with Abdelhamid Abaaoud. The raid

then started several hours later. We are hearing some extraordinary

detail from the commandos that went into that apartment.

What was it like as you approached the flat?

When we arrived at the scene on the third floor - it was a

four-storey building, we wanted to put some explosives on the front

but when we released the chargers, the door did not fully open.

So we had to put another charge in, but before we could detonate,

Were they speaking to you, did the shout at you?

The assault team, 1.5-2 metres away from the front door,

never heard the terrorists speak, but the sharpshooter heard one

She pretended that she wanted to give herself up.

We think it was an excuse to get us to enter the flat

so that more policemen would die when Horrocks those of automated.

-- win her explosives detonated. Extraordinary details coming out of

that team. The fact that the team tried to conserve their arms. They

were there for the duration. They had reinforced the door of that

apartment to get in with explosives. I need to tell you, to clear up some

confusion, we have been talking about this woman as the suicide

bomber. There is some confusion over that this evening. Only forensics

were tellers whether she was wearing a suicide vest or indeed blew

herself up. There is a theory tonight in the French press that

perhaps she was not a suicide bomber and it was the third person, as yet

unidentified, that blew themselves up and she either was killed by that

explosion by the rounds. Some 5000 rounds that the police fired into

the apartment. So still some confusion there. Still a steady

stream of people walking up and down the street here and outside the

batter clan theatre. -- outside the Bataclan theatre. It has been very

much the case this week. The state of emergency which has been in place

stopped big gatherings of people, but you can see there are still many

people gathering at Place de la Republique. These pictures and

images will be replicated in different parts of the city this

evening as France and Paris remembers, outside the bars and

restaurants, outside one of the churches here in Paris and also, I

would imagine, at the Stade de France, where those suicide bombers

blew themselves up. We will bring you all the news of the evening. We

are approaching the time when these attacks started, just after 9pm

local time. We will bring new reports from Paris as that time

approaches. I will hand you back to the studio now.

Let's just go back over what we know so far.

The authorities in Mali say more than 130 hostages

being held at a luxury hotel in the capital Bamako have now been

freed, more than seven hours after an attack by jihadist militants

State television in Mali says 18 bodies have

There are reports that the gunmen are still in the building,

A militant group linked to Al Qaeda, which was behind the deadly siege

at an Algerian gas plant two years ago, says it carried out

What back this woman is a security analyst in Mali. Thank you for

talking to us. You spent time focusing on security risks in places

like this. How much does what happened today surprise you, or does

it? It does not exactly surprised me. The timing is surprising, but

the fact that we were able to reach barnacle, to get into a high high

scale attack is not surprising. It is something we have seen them do in

the past. A similar modus operandi has been used in other locales and

barnacle has not been immune from these kinds of attacks. Given that

we have seen this kind of thing in the past, should there have been

better security and police? There should have been. I think the fact

that there was an ongoing security operation by the security forces for

the last month and a half it is a three-month operation, might have

taken away some of the people's fears. Or maybe a sense of being

secure had come through, but unfortunately, Bamako has always

been a target. It has always been very openly a target by militants.

Mali has been unstable for years. Operations by such groups have

really reached the border areas. The West and the southern areas, much

more in the last years. Bamako should have been more secure,

particularly this hotel. What do you know about the group claiming the

responsibility for the attack? Do they record? They do. The Arran

amalgamation of two different groups. The leader is the work very

well known worldwide jihadists. They were targeted by a drone attack in

Libya a couple of months ago, and successfully, obviously. He is a man

that has targeted foreigners before. He is behind the attack that

happened in Algeria, in which... We have seen them take responsibility

for a lower scale attacks as well. Mine explosions targeting UN

personnel to an attack on a restaurant in Bamako last March,

actually. The target foreigners as well. You focus on security risks.

What does something like this do to the advice that you're giving? It is

quite interesting, because they did target a Hotel that in terms of

security and even by the UN standards, was suggested by a place

that was quite secure. It is difficult to say. In Mali, it is a

constant threat. It is an issue that a lot of people must deal with.

There will be repercussions and a follow-through from this attack. We

are going to the heightened security and an unsettled nation in terms of

what security forces were doing, why there was not enough security and

are the operations by the French forces as well as the other forces

and the UN personnel enough? It will be interesting. At the moment, it

has never been a stable place, so in terms of advice for people

travelling there, it has always been a higher risk. Briefly, what about

the timing of this? Do you think this was connected to what we saw in

Paris? I think there is a global terrorist movement towards France

just because of its involvement in so many different areas. I think

threats against the French in Mali have been going on for many years.

Specifically, a couple of days before the Paris attack, there was

another militant leader who threatened France and said they

would attack French interests in Mali specifically. We have to leave

it there. Bat-el Ohayon, thank you. We are right up against the end of

our programme. Thank you for being with us. Continuing coverage of the

situation in the Mali and Paris on the BBC website.