Terror Attack Unfolding in Mali
Malian special forces have entered the Radisson Blu Hotel in the capital, Bamako, to try to free hostages taken after it was stormed by gunmen.
The hotel says 138 people remain inside. The gunmen stormed it shooting and shouting “God is great!” in Arabic, eyewitnesses say.
Malian officials said 30 hostages have been freed. State TV earlier put the figure at 80.
Three people have been shot dead and two soldiers wounded, officials say.
The motive remains a mystery to officials.
Yes, I’m kidding in that last line.
Patterico (86c8ed) — 11/20/2015 @ 7:49 amDisaffected youths, upset at the high price of aragula brought about by crop failures due to climate change.
nk (dbc370) — 11/20/2015 @ 7:55 amAn old friend, a mining consultant, turned down a job offer in Mali to evaluate projected yields. He’s visiting me in SW Florida now and he’s happy as a clam at high tide he had the good sense to pass up a lucrative offer.
ropelight (339f16) — 11/20/2015 @ 8:36 amAre they Daesh/ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State/”the” Islamic State, or are they Original al Qaeda ® ™ ?
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 11/20/2015 @ 8:46 amI believe a certain religion that couldn’t possibly be connected to the events in Mali has a holy book that is only authentic when it’s written (and recited) in Arabic exhorts its adherents to shout something along those lines about God. But I can’t be sure.
By the by, the terrorists of undetermined motivation freed hostages if they could recite verses from that holy book. I’m sure that was just pure chance that they picked that particular book outof all the ones they could have chosen. No doubt the clearly secular terrorists of inscrutable motivation played rock, paper, scissors, each representing one of the “world’s great religions,” and Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, etc., guys lost.
Anyhow, I’m sure glad that the BBC was good enough to not let me know what the Arabic words for “God is great” happen to me. I’m just sitting here bitterly clinging to my guns and my Bible and my xenophobia and I might jump to some hasty hateful, racist, redneck conclusions.
This way, what with the BBC thoughtfully putting a couple of degrees of separation between the acual words these people used in the original language and me I am blissfully incapable of drawing any conclusions whatsoever.
Steve57 (f9c99b) — 11/20/2015 @ 8:56 am“God is great” strikes me as anti-government rhetoric, so I think we should find out if Mali has a local version of the Tea Party.
And there’s a Radisson Hotel in Bamako? I don’t think that is where I am going to cash in on my free nights.
JVW (738b08) — 11/20/2015 @ 9:14 amMali is a beautiful place, with very nice people. They did not understand “Greece” or “Hellas”, but they understood the Arabic “Alyunan”, probably derived from Ionia.
nk (dbc370) — 11/20/2015 @ 9:21 amI’m sure liberals will rally to denounce non-existent anti-Muslim violence before the blood of the victims of Islamic terrorism has had a chance to cool. Maybe we can send Muslim Clock Boy to go bath in it and declare himself a victim.
BTW, the number of Muslims killed in America by anti-Muslim backlash since 9/11: zero.
CrustyB (69f730) — 11/20/2015 @ 9:58 amTonight Hussein Obama will announce we are taking in 75,000 Mali “refugees” because we are compassionate. Let the vetting begin!
I feel safer already.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 11/20/2015 @ 10:10 amAccording to additional reporting it is actually US and French SF clearing the hotel. Just
Steve57 (2da6c4) — 11/20/2015 @ 10:37 amremember this admin couldnt get forces to Benghazi within half a day. But a
hotel in Mali? They are Johnny on the Spot.
Death toll now set a 27 (plus 3 terrorists put down, with more terrorists barricaded on the roof yet to be disposed of.) Twenty-two Americans rescued unharmed. Again, DailyMail has the coverage.
It is a remarkable coincidence that U. S. special forces were available to end the assault.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 11/20/2015 @ 10:51 amThey might have been stationed at the embassy–in hindsight. Don’t think it is all that far away from the hotel.
DRG (76b104) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:00 amWe’ve had troops engaged in anti-terrorism operations all over Central and West Africa for a while. https://theintercept.com/2015/11/20/in-mali-and-rest-of-africa-the-u-s-military-fights-a-hidden-war/
nk (dbc370) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:09 amTonight Hussein Obama will announce we are taking in 75,000 Mali “refugees” because we are compassionate. Let the vetting begin!
No worries. Madonna and Angelina Jolie and other Hollywood celebrities will adopt all of them.
JVW (738b08) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:09 amMY GOD, WOULD THE STATE DEPARTMENT PLEASE GET OFF OF ITS REAR END AND COME UP WITH A PITHY HASHTAG THAT WE CAN ALL USE!!!!!!!!!111!!!1!!!!
JVW (738b08) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:12 amThe terrorists are said to be nomadic Tuareg rebels and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a military organisation partly made up of former Libyan soldiers.
This is a link to the DailyMail map of Mali indicating government (yellow) and terrorist (red) territory. Government territory in this case means essential travel may be attempted. Looks like another victory for the administration’s strategy of creating a vacuum and leading with their behinds. And, as evidenced by the composition of the NMLA, Hillary!’s Libyan initiative continues to pay its bloody dividends.
Since these aren’t ISIS troops, this is obviously of no interest to Kerry and his commander. Further, this attack should be considered to be a consequence of a “peace deal” reached about two years. Which brings to question just how does one make peace with an organization that is dedicated to killing you?
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:20 amCannot go to that sitebased on principle.
DRG (76b104) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:23 amFirst time I saw it, myself, but I seemed to remember that we had troops there from the Boko Haram kidnappings in Nigeria and Googled for something linkable. What’s wrong with it?
nk (dbc370) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:27 amnk
Oh I am curious–but isn’t Glenn Greenwald and Snowden associated with that site? If a site publishes classified material–it’s a no go. When wikileaks –happened–wasn’t an order put out not to go there? Intercept did something like that recently, if I remember correctly, and it basically smelled like a fishing expedition to get people to discuss capabilities and/or limitations.
DRG (76b104) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:39 amTo me the more clear cut assertion to make would be that the Administration actually–for once–followed the recommendations of an Accountability Review Board–Benghazi–particularly since Hillary is running for C in C (holy crap contemplating that possibility really sucks.)
DRG (76b104) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:43 amThank you. I didn’t know that. I’m no fan of the Bradley Mannings/Edward Snowdens or their accomplices masquerading as journalists.
nk (dbc370) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:45 amNo problem nk. Thanks for understanding the Snowden issue.
DRG (76b104) — 11/20/2015 @ 11:59 amYes, and they were there in September 2012, too. Africa is a big continent but they weren’t half a day away from Benghazi.
Steve57 (f9c99b) — 11/20/2015 @ 1:53 pmFor a little perspective, Ceasar could have transported his troops from Sicily to Libya on quinqueremes faster than this administration said it was able to respond.
But then it took less time to win WWII than it took for this administration to set up a barely functional website, and fewer people to establish NASA than it takes to manage Obama’s twitter account, too.
Steve57 (f9c99b) — 11/20/2015 @ 1:58 pmBecause jokes about terrorist attacks are hilarious to conservatives. Especially complete and total jerks, but I repeat myself.
yezz (4d644b) — 11/20/2015 @ 4:23 pmI covered the back story, without the stench of greenwald, here,
http://narcisoscorner.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-seeds-of-current-imbroglio.html?view=timeslide
narciso (732bc0) — 11/20/2015 @ 5:39 pmObviously a dire need for midnight soccer and a jobs program. C’mon, people!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/20/2015 @ 6:53 pmAmish, again, no doubt.
The Pattern Repeats (f9e702) — 11/20/2015 @ 7:46 pm#OBUMBLEFOCK. “ISIS, is not ISLAMIC, despite their self identified ISLAMIC NAME, and their ALLAHU AKBAR pronouncements, as the SHOOOOOT, BOMB, BLOW THEMSELVES UP and SHOW PICTURES of THEMSELVES………Q’RANS/KORAN’S or other spellings……IN HAND.
GUS (7cc192) — 11/20/2015 @ 7:53 pmOur MUZZTARD BASTARDS….SELF IDENTIFY AS MUZZTARD. Can we call them CAITLYN???????
“And that is why Barack Obama is so eager to respond to the Paris attacks with a rhetorical fusillade against Republican bigotry. It is a ploy as brilliant as it is disgustingly cynical. Obama is a co-author of this refugee crisis. As Walter Russell Mead writes, “No one, other than the Butcher Assad and the unspeakable al-Baghdadi, is as responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria as is President Obama.” Somewhere deep inside Obama’s supposedly Niebuhrian conscience even he must suspect there is some truth to this. And even if his denial is total, he must understand that a great many historians will side with Mead in this appraisal.
Rather than face this unthinkable truth, Obama seeks to change the story line so that he is the noble and besieged martyr fighting the forces of reaction at home, rather than the hapless and bumbling nutty professor who let the world go to Hell on his watch. “Sanctimony over refugees is Obama’s way of restoring his own moral superiority over people who’ve been complaining for years, entirely correctly, that his Syria policy is FUBAR and has contributed to the disaster,” as Allahpundit writes.
The notion of ideology as a safe space during a time of both real and ideological crisis also helps to explain how the left’s waging “the moral equivalent of war” on vaporous “climate change” has run on such a long parallel track to Islamic terrorism since shortly after 9/11. And why Obama has said that “there’s no greater threat to our planet than climate change” so many timeswhile simultaneously engaging in what Jonah correctly dubs his “phony war on the Islamic State [that] was always more about seeming to do something while running out the clock until his successor inherits his mess.”
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/219454/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/21/2015 @ 7:02 amShorter Perry: “What’s it like to have a male appendage?”
Literally, shorter Perry. And his world wonders.
Steve57 (f9c99b) — 11/21/2015 @ 7:02 amQ. According to Islam, martyrs go to Paradise but suicide is a sin. So where do suicide bombers go?
nk (dbc370) — 11/21/2015 @ 7:05 amA. Everywhere.
Send them all to Paradise, roach-class…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/21/2015 @ 7:16 amthe Radisson hotels are named after a French guy named Monsieur Radisson they’re owned by Minnesota’s Carlson Companies
sometimes they get attacked by terrorism, if you believe the news
another negative aspect about the Radisson hotels is you don’t get starwood points when you stay at a Radisson
so in summary:
* named after french guy
* terrorist attacks
* no starwood points
happyfeet (831175) — 11/21/2015 @ 1:21 pm