At least 27 people were reported dead on Friday after Malian commandos stormed the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako with at least 170 people inside, many of them foreigners, that had been seized by Islamist gunmen.
An Air Algerie plane has crashed over Niger with 116 onboard after it was forced to divert due to a sandstorm, an Algerian aviation official has confirmed.
Militants from groups affiliated with once feared Al Qaeda network are abandoning their outfits to join the dreaded Islamist State that has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and been targeted in American airstrikes, according to a report.
The hotel is popular with westerners and United Nations staff and often used by French troops with Operation Barkhane, a force based in Chad and set up to combat Islamist militants across Africa's vast, arid Sahel region.
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