- BAMAKO, Mali: A tour guide says gunmen killed a German man in Mali’s most famous city of Timbuktu and seized three men from the Netherlands, South Africa and Sweden.
Ali Maiga says the South African also holds a British passport. Maiga was with the tourists during Friday’s attack at a Timbuktu restaurant.
Timbuktu was formerly one of Africa’s most visited destinations, but is now one of Mali’s many former tourist hotspots deemed too dangerous to visit by foreign embassies because of kidnappings by the local chapter of Al-Qaeda.
The group’s footprint has grown dramatically since 2006, when the Algerian-led cell first joined Al-Qaeda. Security experts estimate the group has been able to raise around $130 million from ransom payments alone.
