OUAGADOUGOU: Sixty-three hostages, including 33 wounded, were evacuated in the early hours of Saturday from a Burkina Faso hotel besieged by al-Qaida-linked gunmen, communication minister Remis Dandjinou said."There are some dead but we don't have the numbers. The assault is ongoing with the Burkinabe forces supported by French special forces," Dandjinou said, adding that amongst those rescued was labour minister Clement Sawadogo.It was not immediately known how many people may have been killed during the siege. But al least 20 people are reported to be killed in the attack.The local al-Qaida affiliate known as AQIM claimed responsibility online even as the attack was ongoing in downtown Ouagadougou at the 147-room Splendid Hotel, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.In a message posted in Arabic on the militants' "Muslim Africa" Telegram account, it said fighters had "broke into a restaurant of one of the biggest hotels in the capital of Burkina Faso, and are now entrenched and the clashes are continuing with the enemies of the religion." Fighters who spoke by phone later "asserted the fall of many dead Crusaders," AQIM said, according to SITE.In the early morning hours, French forces arrived in Ouagadougou from neighboring Mali to aid the effort. Burkinabe soldiers already had stormed the building, at one point briefly setting part of the building ablaze with their explosives.Cars in front of the hotel also had been set on fire by the attackers, who stormed the bustling area downtown Friday evening.Witness Vital Nounagnon told the AP that he saw four men wearing turbans attack the hotel and neighboring Cappuccino Cafe about 7:30pm. Another witness who gave only his first name, Gilbert, said that when Burkinabe security forces first arrived, they turned around rather than confront the attackers."But we know that the gunmen won't get out of the hotel alive," he said. "Our country is not for jihadists or terrorists. They got it wrong."A man who works the day shift at the Cappuccino Cafe, Alpha Ouedraogo, had left just 90 minutes before the attack began. He said he had been in touch by phone with other employees and that more than a dozen of them were in hiding and awaiting rescue.Burkina Faso, a largely Muslim country, had for years been mostly spared from the violence carried out by Islamic extremist groups who were abducting foreigners for ransom in Mali and Niger. Then last April, a Romanian national was kidnapped in an attack that was the first of its kind in Burkina Faso.The country also has been in growing political turmoil since its longtime president was ousted in a popular uprising in late 2014. Last September members of a presidential guard launched a coup that lasted only about a week. The transitional government returned to power until Burkina Faso's November election ushered in new leaders.