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 Six shooters targeted hotels on a beach at Grand Bassam, a weekend
retreat popular with westerners about 40 km (25 miles) east of the
commercial capital Abidjan, before being killed in clashes with
Ivorian security forces, the government said.
"Six attackers came onto the beach in Bassam this afternoon,"
Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara said during a visit to the site.
"We have 14 civilians and two special forces soldiers who were
unfortunately killed."
A French man was killed in the attack, according to a French foreign
ministry spokesman. The nationalities of the other dead were not yet
known, but four were European, one officer said during a briefing
attended by a Reuters reporter.
Ivory Coast Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko later said foreign
citizens from France, Germany, Burkina Faso, Mali and Cameroon were
among the victims.
The reporter saw the bodies of three white people at Grand Bassam's
Chelsea Hotel and another in the Hotel Etoile du Sud next door.
A short drive from Abidjan - one of West Africa's largest cities
with around 5 million inhabitants - Grand Bassam fills up on
weekends with thousands of beachgoers.
Witnesses said the gunmen followed a pathway onto the beach where
they then opened fire on swimmers and sunbathers before turning
their attention to the packed seafront hotels where people were
eating and drinking at lunchtime.
"They started shooting and everyone just started running. There were
women and children running and hiding," said another witness, Marie
Bassole. "It started on the beach. Whoever they saw, they shot at."
Security forces moved to evacuate the area surrounding the beach.
Bullet holes riddled vehicles nearby and glass from shattered
windows littered the ground.
The body of one of the attackers, dressed in dark trousers and a
blood-covered striped shirt, lay beside the beachside entrance to
one hotel, a bullet hole in his head.
Beside him on the sand sat a combat vest used to carry extra
ammunition. Nearby, on the ground, lay unexploded grenades.
GROWING THREAT
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has carried out other
recent attacks in the region, claimed responsibility for Sunday's
shootings, according to the U.S.-based SITE intelligence monitoring
group, citing an AQIM statement.
It said the attack had been carried out by just three militants.
Barely two months ago, Islamists killed dozens of people in a hotel
and cafe frequented by foreigners in neighboring Burkina Faso's
capital, Ouagadougou. Gunmen also attacked a hotel in the Malian
capital, Bamako, late last year.
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Both of those attacks were also claimed by AQIM and raised concern
that militants were extending their reach far beyond their
traditional zones of operation in the Sahara and the arid Sahel
region.
Though previously untouched by Islamist violence, Ivory Coast,
French-speaking West Africa's largest economy and the world's top
cocoa producer, has long been considered a target for militants.
It has been on high alert since the Ouagadougou attacks, and
security has been visibly bolstered at potential targets, including
shopping malls and high-end hotels.
By Sunday evening, Ivorian authorities had begun an investigation
into the attacks.
"We have a mobile phone that is now in the hands of the Ivorian
scientific police that will allow us to look at all the
ramifications and go back to the source," Interior Minister Bakayoko
said on state-owned television.
As the scale of the tragedy become evident, regional and world
leaders expressed their support for Ivory Coast, which has recently
emerged from a decade of political turmoil and civil war to become
one of the world's fastest growing economies.
President Macky Sall of Senegal, another country seen as a likely
target for AQIM, called upon West African countries to step up their
cooperation against terrorism and violent extremism.
France's President Francois Hollande, meanwhile, denounced the
shootings in the former French colony as a "cowardly attack."
"France will bring its logistical support and intelligence to Ivory
Coast to find the attackers. It will pursue and intensify its
cooperation with its partners in the fight against terrorism," he
said in a statement.
(Additional reporting by Joe Bavier and Loucoumane Coulibaly;
Writing by Edward McAllister and Joe Bavier Editing by Ruth
Pitchford and Jonathan Oatis)
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