Authorities in Mali published photographs on Monday of a man and a woman they said helped plan last week's Islamist militant assault on a luxury hotel in the capital, Bamako.

"They are suspects, people suspected of having links with the two terrorists [who attacked the hotel]," a source close to the West African state's security ministry told Reuters.

The pictures aired on state television were the first indication that authorities were seeking accomplices to those who carried out Friday's attack on the Radisson Blu hotel. A total of 20 people were killed in the attack, which ended when commandos stormed the building and killed two gunmen.

The bloodshed in Bamako, which came a week after Islamic State attacks in Paris killed 130 people, underlined deepening insecurity in Mali and the difficulties French and UN peacekeeping forces are having in stabilizing the former French colony.

The 10,000 member UN force, MINUSMA, said on Monday that 20 civilians and two militants died in the attack, raising the toll from the 19 civilians reported earlier by the government.

Chief prosecutor Boubacar Sidiki Samake, who is heading the investigation, said authorities had recovered mobile phones and machine pistols from the bodies of the two militants that will help them understand how the attack was conceived.

The Massina Liberation Front, blamed for previous violence in southern Mali, on Sunday became the third group to claim responsibility for the hotel attack.