Mali attack shows need for wider coalition against terror: Putin
November 21, 2015, 11:03 am

File Photo: Putin with French President Francois Hollande [Image: Archives]

Putin “stressed in his message that the inhuman crime committed in the capital of Mali confirmed that terrorism knows no borders and presents a real threat to the whole world, its victims being people of different nationalities and faiths, while the only way to counter this threat is through broad international cooperation,” a Kremlin statement said.

The Russian President also “expressed his sincere sympathy to the families and friends of the victims” in his message on Saturday to Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

On Friday, the Mourabitoun Islamist extremist group, who pledged allegiance to ISIL in May of this year, seized the Radisson Blu hotel in the Malian capital of Bamako killing and injuring dozens.

More than 100 other hostages, many of them foreigners, including 20 Indians, were rescued by French and Malian forces on Friday night.

The death toll now stands at 29, according to the UN peacekeepers who searched the hotel after the siege ended.

Islamist extremists say the attacks in Bamako were in retaliation for military operations launched by Malian and French forces in the north of the country along the Algerian and Niger borders.

Meanwhile, Algerian security forces, which have been on high alert since the Paris terrorist attacks last week, say they have captured three militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS).
Anti-terrorism squads captured the men in the south of the country near the borders with Niger and Mali.

The recent terror attacks in Paris have served to bring together a bigger anti-ISIL coalition which appears more resolved to end the extremist group’s influence and threats in the Middle East and Europe.

The chronology of events – Sinai, Beirut, Paris – appears to have forced erstwhile partners Russia and the US to converge interests and strategies with European allies to take the fight to ISIL.

On Tuesday, Putin announced that Russian aerial and naval forces would closely work with the French forces in the Mediterranean to carry out joint missions against ISIL.

TBP and Agencies