{"id":23931,"date":"2016-03-16T01:36:52","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T01:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ouattara-defiant-in-wake-of-jihadist-attack\/"},"modified":"2016-03-16T01:36:38","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T01:36:38","slug":"ouattara-defiant-in-wake-of-jihadist-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ouattara-defiant-in-wake-of-jihadist-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Ouattara defiant in wake of jihadist attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara vowed Monday that the country would not be \u201cintimidated by terrorists\u201d, as the death toll in the country\u2019s first jihadist attack climbed to 18.}<\/p>\n

Armed with grenades and assault rifles, gunmen on Sunday stormed three hotels and sprayed the beach with bullets in the resort of Grand-Bassam, a sleepy town popular with expats just a short 40 kilometre drive from the commercial capital Abidjan.<\/p>\n

The attack claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) left 15 civilians dead, including a German woman, as well as killing three special forces troops, the government said. A total of 33 people were injured, 26 of whom are still in hospital.<\/p>\n

France said four of its nationals were among the dead.<\/p>\n

AQIM\u2019s real target was France, analysts said, punished both as Ivory Coast\u2019s former colonial master and for hunting down jihadists in Mali and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ivory Coast will not allow itself to be intimidated by terrorists\u201d, Ouattara said in a statement broadcast on radio and television.
\n\u201cIvory Coast is standing up, standing up to fight the cowards and protect its people.\u201d<\/p>\n

He vowed to work with countries in the sub-region, on the continent and with our \u201cother international partners to reinforce our cooperation to fight these terrorists\u201d.<\/p>\n

Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said \u201cthree terrorists were killed\u201d in the assault.<\/p>\n

NATIONAL MOURNING PERIOD<\/p>\n

Asked whether more gunmen were involved \u2014 some witnesses had reported several attackers \u2014 the minister said \u201cwe\u2019re still looking. We don\u2019t suspect more but we\u2019re making sure we carry out the widest possible sweep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with a three-day national mourning period starting Monday, he said the West African nation would boost security at \u201cstrategic sites and in public places… (such as) schools, embassies, international institutions… and the borders.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the latest such jihadist assault in West Africa, witnesses described the panic as gunfire rang out across the sand and an assailant shouted \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d \u2014 Arabic for \u201cGod is greatest\u201d.<\/p>\n

Condemnation came from around the world with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pledging to help government \u201cefforts to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

French President Francois Hollande\u2019s office said his country will support Ivory Coast \u201cto fight terrorism and considers that cooperation between all the states threatened by terrorist groups, particularly in West Africa, must intensify more than ever\u201d.
\nIt was the third such attack in four months in West Africa and a blow to a nation working to lure back foreign tourists to its palm-fringed beaches and rainforests as it recovers from a brutal civil war.<\/p>\n

The German victim was named as 51-year-old Henrike Grohs, who headed Abidjan\u2019s Goethe Institute, the German language centre\u2019s secretary-general said. Grand-Bassam is packed at weekends with visitors drawn by its magnificent beaches and Unesco-listed colonial-era buildings.<\/p>\n

Carine Boa, a Belgian-Ivorian teacher at an international high school in Abidjan, was at one of the beach bars with her two sons when the gunmen arrived. \u201cWe were really scared. We thought of the people at the Bataclan,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Ivorian<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara vowed Monday that the country would not be \u201cintimidated by terrorists\u201d, as the death toll in the country\u2019s first jihadist attack climbed to 18.} Armed with grenades and assault rifles, gunmen on Sunday stormed three hotels and sprayed the beach with bullets in the resort of Grand-Bassam, a sleepy town […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2461],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-daily-nation"],"bylines":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23931"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23931"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}