Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is, essentially, a roving anti-imperialist guerrilla force, but the prerequisite for such a group to be legitimate, is popular consensus to approve, and support its actions.
They targeted the hotel to strike terror into the French and American colonialist battalions, both military and economic.
3 million people in Burkina Faso do not have access to safe water. 14 million do not even have a toilet. The average citizen would have to save his income for six months to stay one night in the Splendid Hotel and swim in their pool (though he would be more likely to fill containers with water from the swimming pool to take home to his village). This, clearly, is a colonialist oasis.
This is not to condone the attack; I disagree with the tactic, but I recognize the legitimacy of the target.
Whenever something like this happens, in my opinion, we should try to analyze how it could have been done differently.
Attacking the hotel is a reflexive action, it is the first sort of thing that would come to mind (“identify where the foreigners are—attack them”), and we need to move beyond this way of doing things. Don’t let your brainstorming end at this point, let it begin from there.
Put “attack the hotel” on the blackboard, and keep thinking so you can come up with ideas that can have a similarly disruptive impact, with fewer negative consequences.
A hotel needs many things to function, any or all of these can potentially be disabled if there is grassroots support for anti-imperialist action.
The supply chain can break down, the staff can strike, the pool can be drained or contaminated, etc etc. Any sort of disruption which demonstrates widespread animosity to the imperialists would have a far greater impact than a single violent attack carried out by a fringe group.