Algeria says some hostages killed in raid on kidnappers

A man stands at a newsstand in Algiers on Thursday and reads a newspaper with a headline that says “Terrorist attack and kidnapping in Ain Amenas.”
A man stands at a newsstand in Algiers on Thursday and reads a newspaper with a headline that says “Terrorist attack and kidnapping in Ain Amenas.”

— Kidnappers and at least some of their hostages were killed Thursday as Algerian forces raided a gas facility where a heavily armed group of Islamist extremists was holding dozens of captives, including Americans and other foreigners, the Algerian government announced.

In a statement on national radio, the communications minister, Mohand Said Oublaid, said many of the hostages had been freed, but he warned that the military assault was not yet complete and that some captives remained trapped inside the remote facility in the Algerian desert.

“The operation resulted in the neutralization of a large number of terrorists and the liberation of a considerable number of hostages,” Oublaid said. “Unfortunately, we deplore also the death of some, as well as some who were wounded. We do not have final numbers.”

He also said, “The operation is ongoing, given the complexity of the site, to liberate the rest of the hostages and those who are trapped inside.”

The communications minister’s announcement was the most detailed official information given by Algeria on the crisis. It began more than 24 hours earlier when Islamist militants seized the foreigners at the internationally managed gas field in the Sahara near the Libyan border, in what they called retaliation for the French military intervention in neighboring Mali. The seizure of the gas field was one of the boldest abductions of foreign workers in recent years.

Unconfirmed news reports earlier Thursday, quoting a statement reportedly from the hostage-takers, said the Algerian military assault had left 35 hostages and 15 kidnappers dead. One Algerian government official called those numbers “exaggerated.”

The minister’s announcement came as foreign governments, including the United States, were seeking details on the raid. There was no sign that the Algerians had given previous notice to any of the countries whose citizens were among the hostages.

A U.S. official said late Thursday that while some Americans escaped, other Americans remain either held or unaccounted for. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Senior U.S. military officials said Pentagon aides traveling in London with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta were struggling to get basic information about the Algerian raid, and that an unarmed U.S. Predator drone was monitoring the gas-field site.

The State Department would not say whether the United States had been notified in advance of Thursday’s operation by the Algerians, but a Pentagon official said it had not.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said U.S. counterterrorism officials were in touch with their Algerian counterparts and that she planned to speak Thursday with Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal for the second time in as many days. She made a vague reference to ongoing U.S. “planning,” without elaborating.

“The security of our Americans who are held hostage is our highest priority,” Clinton told reporters. “Because of the fluidity and the fact that there is a lot of planning going on, I cannot give you any further details.”

Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said his office had not been told ahead of time, an implicit criticism of the Algerian government. A spokesman said Cameron had learned of the raid through Britain’s intelligence sources. Cameron told reporters that the situation was “very dangerous” as he and other British officials appeared to prepare for bad news.

“Although details have yet to become final, I am afraid we should be under no illusion that there will be some bad and distressing news to follow from this terrorist attack,” said Alistair Burt, a foreign-office minister.

The gravity of the crisis prompted Cameron to cancel plans to fly to Amsterdam for a speech today about Britain’s future in the European Union.

Japan also expressed concern, saying Algeria had not only failed to advise of the operation ahead of time but had not heeded Japan’s request to halt the operation because it was endangering the hostages.

“We asked Algeria to put human lives first and asked Algeria to strictly refrain,” the chief Cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, quoted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as telling his Algerian counterpart, Sellal, by telephone late Thursday.

The situation is “very confused,” President Francois Hollande of France said at a news conference in Paris and was “evolving hour by hour.” Hollande gave the first official confirmation that French citizens were among the captives.

Even before reports of the Algerian military’s raid began to emerge, many hostages — Algerian and foreign — were reported to have escaped as the kidnappers failed to persuade Algerian authorities to give them safe passage with their captives.

The Algerian news website TSA, quoted a local official, Sidi Knaoui, as saying that 10 foreigners and 40 Algerians had escaped Thursday after the kidnappers had made several aborted efforts to flee with their captives.

The Irish government confirmed that an Irish citizen had escaped or been released. Stephen McFaul had contacted his family and was “understood to be safe and well and no longer a hostage,” Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement.

The 36-year-old Irish electrician telephoned his wife Thursday to say he had escaped the al-Qaida extremists after one day’s captivity and was safe with Algerian security forces.

While dozens of families in many nations from Japan to the United States waited in hope for similar news, the McFauls threw their arms around one another in the living room of their Catholic west Belfast home.

“I feel over the moon, really excited. I just can’t wait for him to get home,” said his 13-year-old son Dylan, choking back tears in the arms of his grandmother, Marie.

At least one Filipino escaped and was slightly injured, the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department said. Spokesman Raul Hernandez said he had no information about any fatalities.

Meanwhile, Spanish, Norwegian and British oil companies were evacuating workers from Algerian energy facilities Thursday after the hostage-taking.

Spain’s Compania Espanola de Petroleos SA said it moved workers from two Algerian facilities to the center of the country as a precaution and that its Algeria operations were functioning normally.

BP PLC said plans are under way to take some nonessential workers out of Algeria.

Helge Lund, the CEO of Norwegian energy company Statoil, said about 40 nonessential staff members would be flown back to Norway.

The U.S. government also was in contact with American businesses across North Africa and the Middle East to help them guard against the possibility of copycat attacks.

Information for this article was contributed by Adam Nossiter, Alan Cowell, Scott Sayare, Clifford Krauss, Rick Gladstone, Elisabeth Bumiller, Michael R. Gordon, Mark Mazzetti, Eric Schmitt, John F. Burns, Steven Erlanger and Mayy El Sheikh of The New York Times and by Aomar Ouali, Paul Schemm, Karim Kabir, Robert Burns, Lori Hinnant, Elaine Ganley, Bjoern H. Amland, Mari Yamaguchi, Cassie Vinograd, Jill Lawless, Shawn Pogatchnik, Bradley Klapper, Lolita C. Baldor, Kimberly Dozier and Julie Pace of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/18/2013

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