A police cordon is seen while Ivorian police prepare to inspect the area of the hotel Etoile du Sud following an attack by gunmen from al Qaeda’s North African branch, in Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast, March 14, 2016. REUTERS/Luc Gnago
Al Qaeda’s North African branch said its attack on a beach resort in Ivory Coast on Sunday that left people dead was in retaliation for a France’s offensive against militants in the Sahel region and called for its forces to withdraw.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve arrived on Tuesday to comfort the large French community.
“It is our way of life that is being questioned, our will to succeed, our development, democracy and liberty,” Ayrault told journalists.
The meeting also aimed at boosting the investigation into the attack in Grand Bassam, in which four French citizens died.
Three Ivorian Special Forces personnel were killed and three of the attackers were also among the dead.
The statement by Al Qaeda in Maghreb was posted on the group’s social media accounts on Monday.
“We repeat our call to all countries involved in the French invasion of Mali to withdraw,” it said, naming the attackers but presenting no further details of their identities.
France launched Operation Serval to banish militants from northern Mali and replaced it in 2014 with Operation Barkhane which targets militants across the Sahel region.
Ayrault and Cazeneuve met President Alassane Ouattara and were due to visit the site of the attack and meet representatives of the French community.
It was the first such militant raid in Ivory Coast but the third high profile attack in the region since November, after 20 people were killed at a hotel in Mali and 30 died in an attack on a cafe and hotel in Burkina Faso in January.
ISIS, which is based in Syria and Iraq, has also singled out France as a target and claimed responsibility for the attack in Paris in November in which 130 people were killed.
Ivory Coast has French-speaking West Africa’s largest economy and has recovered from a decade of political crisis to boast one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.