Dozens feared dead as hostage situation in Mali hotel

The deadly hostage situation at a hotel in Mali's capital city appeared to come to an end Friday, but the fate of dozens of guests and hotel workers was still unclear.

Local media reported there were no more hostages by Friday afternoon at the Radisson hotel in Bamako. 

A U.N. official told The Associated Press that initial reports from the field indicate that 27 people were killed in the attack. Al Qaeda-linked jihadists claimed responsibility for the siege. 

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the operation is still ongoing, said 12 bodies were found in the basement and 15 bodies were found on the second floor. The official stressed that the building had yet to be totally cleared.

Another U.N. official, U.N. Mali mission spokesman Olivier Salgado, said two extremists have been killed and that forces are going from room to room, checking for more casualties.

A Mali security ministry spokesman told Reuters that some of the attackers who are still alive have "dug in in the upper floors" of the building.

"They are alone with the Malian special forces who are trying to dislodge them," spokesman Amadou Sangho said.

Gunfire continued into the late afternoon and Malian army commander Modibo Nama Traore said operations were continuing. 

Traore told The Associated Press that at least one guest reported the attackers instructed him to recite verses from the Koran before he was allowed to leave the hotel.

At least five U.S. Defense Department personnel and one other American were freed, according to a defense official and a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command. A senior U.S. defense official told Fox News that the 22 Department of Defense and military personnel in Bamako at the time of the incident "have all been accounted for."

Traore said Malian special forces entered the hotel and freed hostages "floor by floor." Hours after the attacks began, local TV images showed heavily armed troops in what appeared to be a lobby area. Some U.S. military personnel in Bamako are assisting with the rescue efforts, a defense official told Fox News.

Traore said 10 gunmen stormed the hotel Friday morning shouting "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," in Arabic before firing on the guards. A staffer at the hotel who gave his name as Tamba Diarra said over the phone that the attackers used grenades in the assault.

Al-Mourabitoun, a militant group based in northern Mali, said on Twitter that it was behind the attack, but the claim could not immediately be verified. The group is led by notorious one-eyed jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who gained recognition in 2013 for an attack on an Algerian gas plant that left 40 people dead, including three Americans.

A handful of jihadi groups, some linked to Al Qaeda, seized the northern half of Mali -- a former French colony -- in 2012 and were ousted from cities and towns by a French military intervention. 

The Brussels-based Rezidor Hotel group that operates the hotel said the assailants had initially "locked in" 140 guests and 30 employees.