Two men believed to be linked to attacks on a beach resort town in Ivory Coast have been arrested by authorities in Mali, reports from Reuters indicate. The reports show that the men, Ibrahim Ould Mohamed and Midy Ag Sodack Dicko, were arrested in the northern towns of Goundam and in Gossi on March 24, respectively. Circumstantial evidence links the two arrested men to the al-Qaeda attack on Grand-Bassam, which led to the death of 19 people. The arrests have been described by Ivory Coast authorities as an “international cooperation in the fight against terror.”
“The information concerning the arrests of two suspects in the north of Mali is true,” an Ivorian military intelligence officer, Lt. Col. Modibo Nama Traore has stated.
So far, security is being beefed up in Ivory Coast as suspected mastermind, Kounta Dallah, remains at large. Meanwhile intense investigations in Mali and Ivory Coast, which are backed by Germany, France and the United States, have seen the arrest of about fifteen suspects as government officials in Mali fear of a possible attack should the best security measures not be put in place.
As Face2Face Africa earlier reported:
After almost a full-day of taking hostages at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, 27 hostages and 2 jihadists were killed, and the remaining hostages were freed.
Of the dead, 12 people were found dead in the basement of the hotel and another 15 were found dead on the second floor, according to the Associated Press.
