Algeria reportedly completes hostages rescue, after 2 Americans escape

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

Two Americans escaped unharmed Thursday from a hostage standoff with an Al Qaeda-linked group as Algeria's state news agency reports special forces have completed a rescue operation to free the remaining foreign hostages, but casualties have been reported.

Algerian state television said that four captives, two Britons and two Filipinos have died. But the militants said at least 35 hostages had died in the state's rescue attempt. There was no way to independently verify the toll in the remote location, 800 miles from Algiers.

The two Americans who managed to escape the Ain Amenas gas plant where they were being held are en route to London.

A senior U.S. official tells Fox News that at least one unarmed U.S. drone is patrolling the Ain Amenas gas plant to provide intelligence on the situation. At least 20 gunmen attacked and took over the vast complex early Wednesday, reportedly in retaliation for France's military intervention against Al Qaeda-linked rebels in neighboring Mali, though Fox News sources say the attack may have been planned much earlier.

The reports of high casualties have deeply disturbed foreign governments, prompting a number to criticize Algeria's operation. Britain's Foreign Office attempted to prepare the British public by saying, "We should be under no illusion that there will be some bad and distressing news to follow from this terrorist attack."

________

 

The new war in Africa.

[Valin]

Sahara hostage holders make new threat

Lamine Chikhi

ALGIERS | Fri Jan 18, 2013 7:01am EST

 

(Reuters) - At least 22 foreign hostages were unaccounted for on Friday and their al-Qaeda-linked captors threatened to attack other energy installations after Algerian forces stormed a desert gas complex to free hundreds of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths.

 

With Western leaders clamoring for details of the assault they said Algeria had launched on Thursday without consulting them, a local source said the gas base was still surrounded by Algerian special forces and some hostages remained inside.

 

Thirty hostages, including several Westerners, were killed during the storming, the source said, along with at least 11 of their captors, who said they had taken the site as retaliation for French intervention against Islamists in neighboring Mali.

(Snip)

[Valin]

Desert siege: 100 of 132 foreign hostages freed

ANIS BELGHOUL and PAUL SCHEMM

1/18/13

 

AIN AMENAS, Algeria -- The bloody three-day hostage standoff at a natural gas plant in the Sahara took a dramatic turn Friday as Algeria's state news service reported that nearly 100 of the 132 foreign workers kidnapped by Islamic militants had been freed.

 

That number of hostages at the remote desert facility was significantly higher than any previous report, but it still left questions about the fate of over 30 other foreign energy workers. It wasn't clear how the government arrived at the latest tally of hostages, which was far higher than the 41 foreigners the militants had claimed previously.

 

Yet the report that nearly 100 workers were safe could indicate a breakthrough in the confrontation that began when the militants seized the plant early Wednesday.

 

The militants, meanwhile, offered to trade two captive American workers for two terror figures jailed in the United States, according to a statement received by a Mauritanian news site that often reports news from North African extremists.

 

(Snip)