French special forces have reached the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, the French defense ministry says.
It has emerged that U.S. citizens were among the people held hostage in the Mali hotel after Islamist gunmen stormed it this morning.
Six U.S. citizens are among the hostages who have been recovered from the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali, U.S. military spokesman Army Colonel Mark Cheadle has said, Reuters are reporting.
Cheadle also says that U.S. special forces are assisting at the hotel hostage situation.
The U.S. State Department has said that Americans "might be present" at the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako where Islamist gunmen are holding scores of people hostage.
The U.S. Embassy in Mali is working to verify whether Americans are present, State Department spokesman John Kirby has tweeted,
A Canadian was among the 80 hostages freed from the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, according to Canada's National Post.
US forces are assisting in the hotel hostage crisis in Mali's capital Bamako. They have helped move civilians to safety.
Fifty elite armed French police officers are poised to head to Bamako today after Islamist gunmen attacked the luxury Radisson Blu hotel and took hostages in the Malian capital Bamako, a gendarmerie spokesman said.
The police officers will advise and support Malian security forces, an interior ministry spokesman said accordng to Reuters.
The men are mostly from France's National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, an elite armed group trained to intervene in events like the attack in Bamako. Ten of the men are forensic and criminal experts.
China's Xinhua news agency has cellphone video footage from the Radisson Blu filmed by one of the Chinese hostages.
Today's attack by what are thought to be Islamist gunmen on the Radisson Blu luxury hotel in Mali's capital Bamako is not the first deadly hotel hostage drama in the country this year. It comes after at least 13 people died in a hotel siege in the central town of Sevare in August.
Five UN workers were among the dead in the August siege at the Byblos hotel.
That siege was claimed by militants linked to the Algerian jihadi leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the former head of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) who now leads his own group, Al-Murabitoun.
Photos are emerging of hostages being freed from the Radisson Blu hotel. Some 138 people are still trapped inside.
The Radisson Blu has set up a hotline for family members concerned about their relatives in the hotel in Bamako, which was stormed by gunmen this morning.