Al Qaeda gunmen kill 16 in Ivory Coast beach attack
Gunmen from al Qaeda's North African branch killed 16 people, including four Europeans, at a beach resort town in Ivory Coast on March 13, the latest in a string of deadly attacks that have confirmed the Islamists' growing reach in West Africa.
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.
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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.
Security forces moved to evacuate the area surrounding the beach. Bullet holes riddled vehicles nearby and glass from shattered windows littered the ground.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has carried out other recent attacks in the region, claimed responsibility for March 13'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.
