A soldier walks past a burnt auto in front of Cappuccino cafe in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016.

Al Qaeda militants last week seized the Splendid Hotel in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, opened fire on a restaurant and attacked another hotel nearby, killing at least 28 people from at least seven countries, and wounding 50 more.

"A full alert has been issued to the defence and security forces in the area to catch the kidnappers and rescue the Elliots", said Roch Marc Christian Kabore, Burkina Faso president.

"There is a very strong political will on the part of the two states to combine our efforts to fight terrorism", said Burkina Faso's prime minister, Paul Kaba Thieba. He also announced on the national broadcaster, Burkina 24, that security forces will step up efforts to thwart attacks, and he asked people to comply with the new restrictions.

French officials said two of its citizens also were killed, while the Agence France Presse reported Ukrainians, Portuguese, Swiss and a Dutch person died during the attacks. Officials said forces killed three attackers in the Splendid Hotel and another in a neighboring hotel.

Four of the six killed in Burkina Faso were previous or current employees of a Quebec City school board, where friends and colleagues of the victims were struggling to deal with their deaths.

"They'll attack western interested when it suits them", said retired colonel George Petrolekas, of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute.

Other bodies were being identified.

In a statement, AQIM named the three attackers as al-Battar al-Ansari, Abu Muhammad al-Buqali al-Ansari and Ahmed al-Fulani al-Ansari, according to SITE Intelligence group.

On Sunday, French authorities were back at the scene carrying out a forensic investigation.

Security at Ghana's borders have been tightened following the weekend attacks in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

He said his ministry has requested the Vietnamese Embassy in Morocco and Burkina Faso to promptly contact competent local agencies to learn more about the incident and whether there have been Vietnamese nationals affected by the assault.

The group in Burkina Faso was in the country to fix a dormitory and set up a school sports field, and were helping build a congregation, Couillard said. When the gunfire stopped after a more than 12-hour siege, at least 28 people had been slain in an unprecedented attack on this West African country long spared the jihadist violence experienced by its neighbors. Surgeon Ken Elliott and his wife Jocelyn were abducted Friday.