Burkina Faso has declared three days of national mourning after al Qaeda militants struck at a top hotel and restaurant killing 29 people.
Security forces freed some 150 hostages and killed four assailants around 12 hours after the extremists launched the assaults on the Splendid Hotel and the Cappuccino Cafe across the road in the capital Ouagadougou.
Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who took office last month, said in a TV and radio address that the nation was "in shock".
"For the first time in its history, our country has fallen victim to a series of barbaric terrorist attacks," he said, adding that the people of Burkina would nevertheless "emerge victorious".
Those killed at the four-star hotel and restaurant, both popular with Westerners and UN staff, came from 18 different countries.
They include six Canadians, two French and two Swiss nationals as well as an American.
The US citizen was named as Michael James Riddering who moved with his wife to Burkina Faso to run an orphanage.
Interior Minister Simon Compaore said the bodies of three "very young" jihadists had been identified, all of them men.
A security source said earlier that three attackers - two of them understood to be women - also died at the Splendid Hotel, while a fourth was killed when security forces cleared out a second hotel nearby.
Al Qaeda of Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed responsibility, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
Kidnappings
The assaults came as two Australians were kidnapped in northern Burkina Faso, the country's communications minister said, correcting an earlier report that the pair were Austrian.
The couple have lived in the country since 1972 and run a clinic, president Kabore said.
It was not immediately clear if the kidnapping was linked to the attacks.
Britons are now being urged to avoid all travel to the area where the attacks took place.
The jihadists launched the assaults in the capital at around 8.30pm local time on Friday when the area is typically very busy.
They fired into the air to push back crowds and torched vehicles, witnesses said.
There were around five to seven attackers, according to witnesses.
Gabriel Mueller, an Austrian aid worker who was staying at a different hotel, described the early scenes around the Splendid as a "complete bloodbath".
Troops, supported by the French military, ended the siege at Splendid Hotel and the Cappuccino Cafe on Saturday morning.
Attacks
A woman who survived the restaurant assault told how she had to "play dead".
"We had just placed our meal orders in Cafe Cappuccino and around 15 minutes later we heard gunshots," she told the Associated Press, from hospital.
"They started to shoot at everyone. We dropped to the ground and as soon as anyone raised their heads they fired at them immediately. We had to play dead.
"They shook people by the foot to see if they were alive or not, and, if they were alive, they shot them.
"They were shooting on the ground floor and then went upstairs and shot downwards as well, and continued shooting.
"When they went upstairs they set the place on fire and left via the roof.
"The room was completely on fire and it was impossible to breathe."
Robert Sangare, the head of Yalgado Ouedraogo hospital in the city, told the AFP news agency that one European patient said the gunmen appeared to target white people.
Dozens of French special forces arrived overnight from neighbouring Mali to help.
Burkina Faso, a largely Muslim country, has endured bouts of political turmoil since 2014 when veteran president Blaise Compaore was overthrown in a popular protest.
But the landlocked country has been largely spared violence by Islamist militants who have staged attacks in neighbouring Mali.
AQIM was behind a similar attack that left 20 dead at a luxury hotel in the Malian capital in November
