23 Dead After Al-Qaeda Storms West African Hotel: "It Was Like A Scene From A Movie"
Back in September, we brought you “Meanwhile, In Burkina Faso: Images From A West African Military Coup.”
In it, we documented renewed turmoil in the landlocked country which is Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer.
In October of 2014, President Blaise Compaoré stepped down after nearly three decades as President. On Thursday, October 30 of that year, Compaoré sought to pass legislation that would have paved the way for a new 5-year term. Here's how WSJ describes what happened next: "That ambition was thwarted by tens of thousands of his compatriots, who swarmed the streets of the capital Ouagadougou. They set fire to the parliament building where the vote had been scheduled to take place, among other government offices. They tore through hotels and shops seen as pro-regime. Up to 30 people were killed in rioting."
Ultimately, Compaoré abdicated.
J'ai quitté le Pouvoir parce que l'intérêt supérieur du Burkina Faso passe au dessus de tout y compris de ma personne.
— Blaise Compaore (@PF_Compaore) October 31, 2014
Eleven months later, the country was set to hold free elections, an event that would have marked a turning point for Burkina Faso's burgeoning democracy. Instead, General Gilbert Diendere (a former chief military adviser for Compaoré) seized power in a military coup. The move coincided with a government committee's decision to disband the presidential guard, an elite group of Compaoré loyalists.
The locals were not happy.
A week later, Diendere pulled a "just kidding" and returned power to interim president Michel Kafando whom the presidential elite had arrested during the coup.
"It was a mistake," Diendere said of the decision to seize power. "We knew the people were not in favour of it. That is why we have given up," he added.
Two months later, Burkina Faso witnessed its first democratic power change in five-and-a-half decades when the country elected Roch Marc Christian Kabore president.
Fast forward to Friday and it's still readily apparent that the security situation in Burkina Faso remains precarious. In a seige that marked the second attack on a hotel in a West African capital since November, al-Qaeda militants stormed the "Splendid" Hotel in Ouagadougou.
Nearly two dozen were killed in the assault and the three gunmen - members of AQIM or, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb - initially took some 126 people hostage. The militants also conducted "operations" at the nearby Restaurant Cappuccino where ten bodies were found in the wake of the chaos.
Here are some images from the scene where some folks set things on fire:
Ultimately, security forces aided by French SpecOps stormed the Splendid, killed the three gunmen - described by Burkina Faso's security minister as "an Arab and three black Africans - and freed the hostages, 33 of which were injured. "Clashes ended after a period of sustained gunfire and explosions that appeared to focus on the Restaurant Cappuccino early on Saturday," a witness told Reuters. "The Splendid Hotel is popular with Westerners and French soldiers based in Burkina Faso." One hostage said the attackers were targeting "white people."
The operation was reportedly held up by a series of booby traps. "What's making our job more difficult is that they've rigged the access to the upper floors," a Burkinabe officer, said on Saturday. Here's an account from The Telegraph:
Gunfire ramped up early on Saturday morning as gendarme and military forces fought to take back the building which had been blackened by a fire during the assault.
The security forces took control of the Splendid Hotel and were searching nearby hotels to be sure no other extremists were hiding. The search
continued even after security forces found and killed a fourth extremist at the Hotel Yibi, the president said.
Cars and motorbikes were burned, and overturned chairs and shards of glass lay scattered near the hotel. Onlookers were kept far away from the fighting that continued into daylight.
The harrowing attack was launched by the same extremists behind a similar siege at an upscale hotel in Bamako, Mali in November that left 20 dead.
Dozens of French forces arrived overnight from neighbouring Mali to aid in the rescue. One U.S. military member was embedded with French forces at the scene, and the United States was working to help provide France with surveillance and reconnaissance help, according to a U.S. senior defence official.
"French special forces helped Burkina Faso’s army in the operation," Bloomberg adds, noting that "among the victims were people from 18 countries." The militant death toll is now up to four. "Four of the militants, including two women, are dead." You're reminded that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is led by a one-eyed former Algerian soldier named Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
Here's Bloomberg again, with some context for Friday's attack
The attack showed al-Qaeda’s growing ability to strike far from its traditional field of operations in northern Mali where it’s been fighting government troops, French soldiers and United Nations peacekeepers, backed by U.S. intelligence officials and special forces. President Francois Hollande has sent soldiers and fighter planes to former French colonies in Africa to repel the Islamists, whose attacks intensified in the semi-arid Sahel region with arms looted from Libya following the collapse of Muammar Qaddafi’s government in 2011.
The latest attack came a day after al-Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia claimed to have killed 63 Kenyan soldiers in the southwest of the Horn of Africa country and two days after Islamic State said it carried out a gun-and-suicide bomb assault in central Jakarta, Indonesia.
As they did when they attacked the Radisson Blu in Mali, the militants said their latest raid was done in response to French intervention in the region that has led to the death of Muslims, according to a statement it sent to Mauritania’s al-Akhbar newspaper on Friday. AQIM disavowed Islamic State last week, saying the group’s caliphate in Syria is illegal and strays from the tenets of Islam.
“We killed 30 of the crusaders,” one of the attackers in Ouagadougou said in a recorded message sent to the newspaper. Al-Qaeda “will fight against France until the last drop of blood.”
That of course suggests that France will continue to a be a top target for jihadists whether they swear allegiance to Ayman al Zawahiri or Bakr al-Baghdadi. Indeed, France might well become a kind of proving ground where al-Qaeda and ISIS battle for jihadist supremacy in a kind of perpetual terror one-upmanship.
As for Burkina Faso, the attack came at a rather inauspicious time. Here's Cynthia Ohayon, Burkina Faso analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group:
“The new government was appointed three days ago; the president took office two weeks ago. There was a wave of optimism and this attack has dealt a huge blow to that."
We close with two eyewitness accounts.
* * *
Via BBC
Edward Bunker, an American health worker for an NGO, was staying at the hotel. He spent the night hunkered down in his room and was rescued in the early hours of Saturday morning:
"At about 19:30 on Friday the fire alarm went off. I went out of the room and saw other guests milling about, and no one seemed to be really concerned. So I went back to my room to get ready to leave for the airport.
I went downstairs to settle the bill around 20:30 and it was like a scene out of a movie with smoke, gunfire noise, explosions - but all outside of the walls. And a very, very empty and dark lobby.
I saw someone carrying a gun just outside the hotel and a burning car across the street. and that was my 'oh sh**' moment. I hid near the pool for about five minutes and figured I might just want to plan to spend the night down there.
Some cooks and kitchen staff walked by, and I made some inquires as best as I could in French. They said I should go back to my room. That was probably the best piece of advice I got that night.
I turned on the news to see what was happening.
I ended up spending the night in my bathroom with my computer and - luckily - a good wifi connection. I was able to get in touch with family and friends and crucially also a security consultant from my organisation as well as the US embassy.
It was amazing how quickly the night passed and I was thankful to have the internet for the whole time. In fact, it was a great distraction to catch up on emails and pretend it was a normal working day.
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Stan Fischer to John Brennan...
We need more Au. Make it happen!
Nigs and Muslims
What could possibly go wrong
VISA. It's every where you want to be...and some places you do not.
I support this sort of behavior.
Paris news video...
Wow,
North American Liberals and especially Millennials....careful what you wish for...http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnplayer.swf?aid=17933
In Nice, and many French cities, people take over the streets to eat, drink, and play loud music until late at night...without a permit.
The Christian churches in France are empty...essentially museums.
Istanbul,Jakarta a few days ago, and now in Burkina Faso's unpronounceable capital of Ouagadougou . Looks like the CIA is cranking up its ISIS terrorist machine to frighten us into giving up more freedoms and taxpayer money. Perhaps it has something to do with Russia and China disrupting their drug networks out of Afghanistan?
"It Was Like A Scene From A Movie""
FFS ~ It's ALL a fucking movie! Sandy Hook, 9/11...
Hollywood is nothing compared to Langley.
Hollywood is nothing compared to Langley.
Hollywood is Langley and always has been since the DOD threw it over the fence to the OSS after WWII!
It's why you'll never see a movie about Eisenhower's death camps that killed more than 1.7 million German POWs, or the U.S.S. Liberty or 9/11 with an all star cast portraying the Israeli art students and the "B-THING" made into a movie
Send your script to Mel Gibson. He does not give a fuck about Hollywood protocol and power structure. If it is compelling he will make it.
Yeah suuurrrrre!....
No dog in this fight!!!!
What is Really Going on in Ouagadougou?
http://themillenniumreport.com/2016/01/why-the-terror-attacks-in-burkina-faso-what-is-really-going-on-in-ouagadougou/
This sentence from ZH really says it all: "The attack showed al-Qaeda’s growing ability to strike far from its traditional field of operations in northern Mali where it’s been fighting government troops, French soldiers and United Nations peacekeepers, backed by U.S. intelligence officials and special forces."
From the Milllennium article: "Burkina Faso has been used as the literal launchpad for so many spying and surveillance operations which essentially support the U.S. drone program and other covert back ops implemented throughout Africa. Somalians, in particular, has been the target of many unlawful drone assassinations which were facilitated specifically from Burkina Faso. Ouagadougou, in particular, serves as the “NORAD” of Africa where it concerns the monitoring of all threats, real and imagined, against the vast Anglo-American interests spread around the African continent."
ISIS / Al Qaeda "Terror" narrative notwithstanding, we still don't know what this incident was about.
They're all heading to Europe now, welcomed by Merkul's and Hollandais' open arms so that should relieve some of the vicious violence in Fasso.
Monsieur, perhaps we should stop destabalizing their homelands and more of them will stay home? N'est pas?
Making matters even worse is the "door that closed" giving the U.S. military their preferred route into Afghanistan due to sanctions and "property damage" to it's backyard Ukraine that has claimed more than 60,000 lives... 17 murders in Volgograd in 2013... 224 murdered over Sinai and 1 Russian Federation pilot in 2015!...
POTUS forgot to mention these accomplishment(s) at the SOTU!
I wonder if he would have gotten a resounding round of applause if he had had a momentary nervous breakdown of conscience and blurted out those exact words instead of telling the American people about Russian hegemonic intentions and the fear of Syria and Ukraine "being plucked out of there orbit"!
Knowing the American people and the "crack", antidepressants and booze they were all on they would have clapped heartily anyway!!!
I'm starting to wonder if the CIA has control of this at all anymore, or if it'd like a RonCo cooker where they "set it and forget it" and are letting it spawn in an organic fashion, maybe drone a guy or two if they need to slow it, or drop guns and bombs when it needs to be sped up.
Like el prez gets his report and Langley is nervously saying 'yeah, no, its all under control'
As outlined in a previous comment, you are not wrong. Arithmetic is a bitch and this goes beyond "freightening" us. Here is why.
.
Debt based economies exist in 2 distinct phases.
The first phase is when 1 new unit of debt gives you at least 1 unit of GDP
When 1 new unit of debt gives you less than 1 unit of GDP, debt based economies enter the second phase
.
There are only 3 things you can do with debt. You can keep adding debt for as long as you are in phase 1
The moment you enter phase 2 however, you can only do 2 things with debt: you can pay it off or you have it cancelled. Anything else you try to do merely buys you time.
Therefore, once 1 new unit of debt gives you less then 1 unit of GDP, whatever you do, you need coercion
And this is where what most people believe to be true, is not, and the result will be the Iraqization of South, South East and East Asia.
Here is why.
The largest holders of Western soveregin debt are not China and Japan as is widely held. China and Japan hold a lot of Western debt indeed. Nevertheless, the largest chunck of Western sovereign debt by far is held by Western pension funds, investment funds and insurance funds. And, today, our own central banks hold boat loads of Western sovereign debt too because there aren't enough natural buyers of the stuff. Ergo, Western debt is held by Westerners.
.
In debt based economies, the management of the monetary system is imposed by the elite by decree. So, for example, in the ostensibly democratic West, the political elite has elected to run deficits as a matter of course. There has been no consultation nor has there been a debate, nor indeed was there a referendum as to whether or not it might be a good idea to run defictis year in, year out.
As the governing elite (regardless of political persuasion) make it their business to run deficits whether the economy is expanding or contracting, year in, year out AND since there is no date of redemption for the debt necessary to make up for the deficit, then you run into the law of diminishing marginal utility.
The law of diminishing marginal utility is a compounding dynamic that eventually must go parabolic.
In order to contrast the arithmetical reality of debt-forcing, governent must necessarily increase fiscal pressure. As you increase fiscal pressure, legislation must necessarily become more complex thus more onerous.
This is a self reinforcing dynamic of course. The diminishing marginal utility of debt therefore, guanrantees that the stewards of the system must necessarily award ever increasing degrees of immunity and privilege to selected entities.
The diminishing marginal utility of debt therefore also guarantees that profit and, therefore, title, gradually migrate towards the stewards of the monetary system and those entities that gravitate around it.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354-500-revealed-the-capital...
.
So, the second phase of debt based economies manifests in declining interest rates, gradually more onerous fiscality, pregressively more complex legislation, ever more intrusive government, thus the gradual monopolization of industry and business, thus the stifling of business dynamism and rising unemployment which in turn drives off shoring and the industrialization of lower cost countries.
.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/05/declining-business-dyna...
.
But off shoring and unemployment force more deficits so the fiscal situation of the sovereign eventually worsens exponentially. Under Obama for example, the debt doubled. .
The long and the short of it is that the point at which sovereign funds, pension funds, insurance funds and sundry holders of sovereign debt want to or must redeem their investments, there is not enough money to go around. Ergo, the sovereign is bankrupt.
This is an arithmetical identity.
.
You are wondering how that ties in with Jakarta or the rest of Asia.
.
Global manufactruing and industrial capacity is by and large concentrated in a band of land that snakes from India to South Korea including Japan and Taiwan.
If the West ever hopes to bring back home a modicum of economic activity, we have to do something about existing industrial capacity.
So, it is my opinion that Asia in general will be given the Iraq treatment.
In the meantime, we must also do something in the West to force the resetting of a number of untenable structures that have reached their arithmetical limit. Pension funds spring to mind for example.
So, in fact, the Western world is also due the Iraqi treatment so the political elite can be seen to not be the cause of the debacle.
So, a social crisis will be precipitated and social upheavel fostered any which way possible including forcing clearly deleterious vaccinations upon society.
.
Arithmetic is a bitch
Jeebus that was a long-boring explanation. Simply put. The multiplier effect swings BOTH ways. Every dollar injected into an imploding economy results in less than a dollar of untility. We are now experiencing increasing diminishing marginal ultility of money. And we're picking up speed. With the bottom nowhere in sight.
I think the truths presented in your statements are sadly inaccessible to a wide margin of the public; wide enough to guarantee the debt crisis will not be stopped until significantly more damage is done and more serious capital consumption occurs, making a recovery that much less likely. Thank you, Guido, for presenting this for "those who have ears to hear"!
Ouagadougou is probably one of the most easily pronouncable names for a capital because it is so much fun to say. It could be the name of a 1946 bop tune, like Hey-bob-a-re-bop. "Wah-goo-doo-goo, mama! I'll do it all over you."
As to the Afghani drug networks, I haven't had a sit-down with the CIA over them in over thirty years, but let me assure you those networks are long standing and well established. The little glitch in the late 90s over the Taliban banning opium production has long been sorted out. As to Russan or Chinese disruption, fuggedabout it. Today's Taliban understands the value of the opium fields. All it wants now is a pice of the action. All of the US's "boots-on-the-ground" blah-blah these days is for domestic consumption, to keep the American yokels (the voters) happy.
So you think the remaining Christian whites should be attending mass given by child molesters and following the popes directives on things like global warming and homosexuality? The Catholic church is a cesspool of corruption that likely exceeds that of the Obama regime, and if you are a registered Catholic I believe you get a couple of percent of your income stolen and sent to the Vatican.
The 'Catholic Church' was established by virtue of a 'movement' cult of Hebrew born storytellers WHOM, created a 'cult' themselves, & whom basically share the same Santa Claus GOD (depending on which family tree you follow from Cain & Abel, &, like, 'meteroites' & shit)
Bottom line?: IT'S ALL A FUCKING MINDFUCK!
Kessel I'd put it this way, people's natural desire to explain their existance in a way that goes beyond Cartesian / Newtonian "reality" can leave them vunerable to the machinations of greedy manipulating psychopaths.
Funny. There are several religions that say it okay to fuck little boys as long as their not your tribe. Heck. Some of em don't even make that distinction. Any child-in-a-storm will do. Too many fukwits out there to hate-on nowadays. Just close my eyes. Spin the bottle. And hate whatever fucker turns up. But always with a smile. And a nice thank you note.
"The Christian churches in France are empty...essentially museums."
Which French churches have you been in lately and at what time?
"It was like a scene from a movie"
Well... if it quacks like a duck...
" I support this sort of behavior."
Sad, like me you must be an American taxpayer ?
Indeed ... ironically a couple of weeks after that bit of fascism was signed into law I flew to Cuba for root canal surgery. The cost of flying to Nassau, connection to Havana, surgery and, a week being nursed back to recovery with cheap rum and hookers, was about 60% of what the anesthesiologist would have billed here in USAinc.
Similar deals are available all over South America, esp. Colombia.
A friend of mine just came from Costa Rica after having dentures implanted. He said the cost was half the US bill even after airfaire.
yes, but where were they implanted?
Same with Thailand:
https://sp.yimg.com/xj/th?id=OIP.M214d19b369bfdcf28168281167249d77H1&pid...
Thais pay 30 Baht, less than $1, for any visit to the doctor or hospital. The staff is excellent and caring. What passes for healthcare is a big disgrace in blimptard America.
It says "SWIFT"(Society for worldwide interbank financial transactions) next to VISA. That would mean this hotel is directly connected to the tribal banking system monopoly. Nice to have when the country is a major gold producer.
+1
This reminds me a lot of Ferguson but at least these people are trying to get rid of a dictator. This assumes that what we are being told is true.
Notice how they dust off the old bogeyman Al Qeada? Looks like the new and improved Al Qeada aka ISIS is less effective. The USA-See Eye Aye packages and repackages bogeymen like Madison Avenue advertising execs.
But I thought Al-Qaeda were the good guys now... I'm so confused, they were the masterminds behind the 9/11 jetliner demolition derby, but are now our allies in Syrian democratization.
USAF is the Al Qaeda airforce in Syria and Iraq.
SWIFT® is advertised to bring in CUSTOMERS with overseas relatives who send them remittances (which outside of gold exports) is how Burkina Faso gets their F/X reserves...
If you have a job in the USSA or EUSSR and want to send some money to Aunt Jemima back in Ouagadougou... VISA® isn't going to help, and Western Union® is an even bigger ripoff than the typical Wall Street bankster.
Every fucking decent hotel in the world has that stuff.
Both Burkina Faso and Indonesia did not join the Saudi terrorism 'coalition' ~ coincidence? I think not
Good thing there were so many heavily armed white guys in that oth big gold producing country next door. If I'm not mistaken, the us , French and Germans showed up in Mali the very same week Germany asked for her gold back. Maybe the mines in Mali are slowing
Nigs and Muslims
What could possibly go wrong
Change Elvis with "Shlomo"...
P.S.
That makes Putin the anti-Shlomo!
Americans - what could go right?
The US military has acquired several aluminium catamarans for troop and equipment transfer. Following the DoD acceptance of maker's design changes, the whole fleet needs structural modifications to prevent waves damaging the hulls.
Even with reinforced structures, the fast transport ships operate under sailing restrictions because “encountering a rogue wave” can “result in sea-slam events that causes structural damage to the bow structure,” ... The operating restrictions include requiring vessels to wait out the highest seas or travel at speeds much lower than their maximum"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/navy-s-fast-sealift-sh...
Thats not a design flaw, its a feature!
"It was like a scene from a movie."
Well... if it quacks like a duck...
Its already gone wrong, stupid.
Las Vegas David- Notice that you always pop up here to fight percieved anti-semitism- but in every respect, you yourself are a bigot and a racist against everyone else.
Is that how Zionism works?
Truth smacks LVD right between the eyes and ... he's down for the count.
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