Ivory Coast ministers were to hold emergency talks later yesterday after the first jihadist attack in the country left at least 18 people dead at a beach resort popular with foreigners.Armed with grenades and assault rifles, the attackers stormed three hotels in the weekend resort of Grand-Bassam.Witnesses described scenes of panic as gunmen sprayed bullets across the beach. One said he heard an assailant shouting "Allahu Akbar" - Arabic for "God is great".The gunmen killed at least 15 civilians, including four French citizens and a German, and three soldiers. Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko told reporters in Abidjan yesterday that three attackers had been killed.Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb and al-Mourabitoune claimed responsibility for the attack.UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pledged to help "efforts to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice".Former colonial power France blasted "the cowardly attack" and offered to help track the culprits while the US vowed to fight "terrorists who seek to undermine efforts by West African governments."It was the third such attack in four months in West Africa and a blow to a nation working to lure back tourists to its palm-fringed beaches and rainforests as it recovers from a brutal civil war.A total of 33 people were injured, 26 of whom are still in hospital.The German victim was named as Henrike Grohs, who headed Abidjan's Goethe-Institut.Grohs, 51, joined the German cultural association in December 2013 and worked as a culture and development professional at the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg.The Goethe-Institut Johannesburg said: "We are grief-stricken. It is impossible to imagine that this light and generous person, who had such a lust for life and passion for the arts and her work, has been ripped from us in such an untimely and horrific way.''Carine Boa, a Belgian-Ivorian teacher at an international high school in Abidjan, was at one of the beach bars with her two sons when the gunmen arrived. "I thought this was it for us.""I saw one of the attackers from far away," said Abbas El-Roz, a Lebanese salesman who was in the pool of a hotel when the attackers struck. "He had a Kalashnikov and a grenade belt. He was looking for people."Hundreds gathered at the attack site yesterday morning and one woman was in tears as she looked for her missing son, a vendor at the beach. "He's not in hospital and not at the morgue," she said. "I don't know where he is. He's handicapped."Salata, an ice-cream seller, said she was in shock. "I couldn't sleep at night," she said. "I'm going to get back my ice box from the beach but I'm scared they'll start shooting again."West African nations have scrambled to boost security after jihadist attacks in November and January on upscale hotels in the capitals of Mali and Burkina Faso that were also claimed by the al-Qaeda group.Robert Besseling of Exx Africa, an intelligence company, said the attacks should not have come as a surprise. "Cote d'Ivoire has been receiving warnings for at least a year from France's intelligence service."..