Mali: Two arrested in connection with Ivory Coast al-Qaeda attack

Authorities in Mali have arrested two men believed to be linked to an al-Qaeda attack on a beach resort town in neighboring Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) that killed 19 people earlier this month, officials said.

Gunmen shot swimmers and sunbathers before storming into several hotels in the town of Grand Bassam, 40 km (25 miles) from the commercial capital, Abidjan, on March 13.

“The information concerning the arrests of two suspects in the north of Mali is true,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Modibo Nama Traore, a military intelligence officer who said they had been picked up by gendarmes and the intelligence service.

Ivory Coast announced last week it had detained 15 people in connection with the attack, which was claimed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Islamist group’s North African branch. Ivorian officials named the suspected ringleader as Kounta Dallah, but said he remained at large.

While Traore gave no further details of the arrests in Mali, a second intelligence officer said the two men were arrested separately on Saturday and Sunday in the towns of Goundam and Gossi in the northern Timbuktu region.

Eleven Ivorians, including 3 special forces’ soldiers, died in the attack.

In the months before the attack on Grand Bassam, AQIM struck hotels and restaurants in Mali’s capital, Bamako, and neighboring Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, killing dozens of civilians.