Saharan Islamist group claims responsibility for Mali attack, killing five.

Saharan Islamist group claims responsibility for Mali attack, killing five. (France24).

A Sahara-based Islamist group on Saturday claimed responsibility for a rare attack in Mali’s capital that killed five people, including two foreigners.

Early Saturday morning on La Terrasse, a popular restaurant with expatriates in Bamako, left a French citizen, a Belgian security officer and three Malians dead and nine others wounded, a senior Malian security official told Reuters.

“There were two individuals who were armed and hooded. One burst into the La Terrasse restaurant and opened fire on people. Then he got into a vehicle in which the other was waiting,” senior police officer Falaye Kanté said.

Five people have been killed in a machine-gun and grenade attack on a bar in Mali's capital, Bamako.

Private daily Bamako, Le Combat , claimed on its website that a man and a woman opened fire with large caliber weapons while a third assailant stood guard at the entrance of the restaurant, but this information could not be verified immediately.

According to the same newspaper , witnesses said they saw the attackers escape in two vehicles , a black Mercedes and a BMW.

One witness said an attacker shouted "God is Great" in Arabic ("Allahu Akbar"). It is the first attack of its kind in the capital.

“As they fled down a neighbouring street, they shot a Belgian man who was in front of his house. He’s dead. Not far away they came across a police vehicle and threw a grenade, killing the driver,” he said.

Mali’s desert north, where French forces wrested control of territory from separatist rebels and Islamist fighters, is plagued by frequent attacks. But this is the first such attack for years in Bamako, located in the south, raising fears the capital will become targeted more often by militants.

Mauritanian news website Al-Akhbar posted an audio recording on social media of a man it said was a spokesman for al-Mourabitoun, a militant group.

In Paris, French President Francois Hollande’s office said the French leader had spoken with Keita and that they had agreed on new “common measures” to reinforce security in Mali. The statement gave no details.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the Belgian victim was a security officer at the European Union’s delegation in Bamako.

Two international experts with the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) were among the wounded, according to initial reports, said Mongi Hamdi, U.N. special envoy for the peacekeeping mission to Mali (MINUSMA). Read the full story here.