Algerian Troops Attack Site to End Hostage Standoff
Without warning other governments, Algeria
mounted an assault on Thursday on the heavily armed fighters holding
American and other hostages at a remote Sahara gas field facility,
freeing captives and killing kidnappers but leaving some hostages dead
and foreign leaders scrambling to find out the fates of their citizens.
Satellite Image by Cnes/Spot Image, via Google Earth
A satellite photograph showing the gas field project at In Amenas, Algeria.
Multimedia
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Kjetil Alsvik/Statoil, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
An undated photo of the In Amenas gas field in
Algeria, where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign hostages on
Wednesday.
Hours after the raid, there was no official word on the number of
hostages who had been freed, killed or still held captive. Estimates of
the foreign casualties ranged from 4 to 35, though one Algerian official
said the high figure was “exaggerated.”
Despite requests for communication and pleas to consider the safety of
their abducted citizens, the United States, Britain and Japan said they
had not been told in advance about the military assault, stirring
frustration that the Algerians might have been overly aggressive and
caused needless casualties.
But the Algerian government, which has a history of violent suppression
of Islamist militancy, stood by its decision to deal forcefully with the
kidnappers, who were holding Algerians and citizens of nine other
countries.
“Those who think we will negotiate with terrorists are delusional,” the
communications minister, Mohand Saïd Oublaïd, said in an announcement
about the assault on the facility near In Amenas, in eastern Algeria,
close to the Libya border. “Those who think we will surrender to their
blackmail are delusional.”
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