Is France the target of the Mali attack?

Bamako is two and half thousand miles from Paris; but in another capital, the same nightmare has unfolded.

The Radisson Blu is home to a multi-national clientele – Chinese, Indians, Turks among them.

But the big target is, many are already arguing, France; the former colonial power in the land, and whose thousand or so troops support the government, having ousted Islamist forces in 2013.

It’s too early to say who is behind the attack. Mali is deeply troubled by a myriad of shape-shifting tribal and religious rebels.

But at the start of the month, one of the most dangerous; Ansar Dine leader Iyad Ag Ghaly, rejected a peace deal and called for more attacks on French targets.

His group has been linked with Al Qaeda, rather than the so-called Islamic State, but it remains possible this attack was motivated by events in Paris; an appalling me-too grab for headlines.

Africa, home to Boko Haram, officially the world’s most deadly terrorist group, needed no reminder that is faces its own Islamist menace.

Nor did President Hollande need telling his war on terror will be fought on many different fronts.