4 dead in Mali hotel siege, hostages taken: military

Bamako: Four people including two soldiers were killed Friday in an ongoing siege at a hotel in central Mali, where gunmen have also taken a number of hostages, a military source said.

Attackers stormed the Byblos hotel in the town of Sevare early Friday, in what military sources and local residents said appeared to be an attempt to kidnap Western hotel guests.

"It is a hostage-taking," the military source said, adding that two of the troops surrounding the Byblos hotel had been killed and another three injured.

A man wearing an explosives belt was shot dead, the source said, while the body of a white man was lying outside the hotel. "It is still not over," the source added.