Algeria ends standoff, states at least 55 dead

ALGIERS, Algeria — In a bloody finale, Algerian special forces stormed a natural-gas complex in the Sahara desert Saturday to end a standoff with Islamist extremists, leaving at least 23 hostages dead and killing all 32 militants involved, the Algerian government said.

With few details emerging from the remote site in eastern Algeria, it was unclear whether anyone was rescued in the final operation, but the number of hostages killed Saturday - seven - was how many the militants had said that morning they still had. The government described the toll as provisional, and some foreigners remained unaccounted for.

The siege at Ain Amenas transfixed the world after radical Islamists linked to al-Qaida stormed the complex, which contained hundreds of plant workers from all over the world, then held the workers hostage while being surrounded by the Algerian military and its attack helicopters for four tense days that were punctuated with gun battles and dramatic tales of escape.

Algeria’s response to the crisis was typical of its history in confronting terrorists, favoring military action over negotiation, which caused an international outcry from countries worried about their citizens. Algerian military forces twice assaulted the two areas where the hostages were being held with minimal apparent mediation - first Thursday, then Saturday.

“To avoid a bloody turn of events in response to the extreme danger of the situation, the army’s special forces launched an intervention with efficiency and professionalism to neutralize the terrorist groups that were first trying to flee with the hostages and then blow up the gas facilities,” Algeria’s Interior Ministry said in a statement about the standoff.

French, British and U.S. officials said the Algerian government had told them the military operation was over, but a senior Algerian government official said security forces were “doing cleanup” to make sure no kidnappers were hiding in the sprawling industrial complex.

Immediately after the assault, French President Francois Hollande announced his support for Algeria’s tough tactics, saying they were “the most adapted response to the crisis.”

“There could be no negotiations” with terrorists, the French media quoted him as saying in the central French city of Tulle.

Hollande said the hostages were “shamefully murdered” by their captors, and he linked the event to France’s military operation against al-Qaida backed rebels in neighboring Mali.

Other officials also deplored the loss of life during the four-day siege, which Philip Hammond, the British defense secretary, called “appalling and unacceptable.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who appeared with Hammond at the joint news conference in London, said he did not yet have reliable information about the fate of Americans at the facility, although the Algerian official said two had been found “safe and sound.”

U.S. officials had said “seven or eight” Americans had been at the Ain Amenas field when it was seized by the militants Wednesday.

President Barack Obama said in a statement Saturday that the U.S. stood ready to provide whatever assistance was needed in the wake of the attack.

“This attack is another reminder of the threat posed by al-Qaida and other violent extremist groups in North Africa. In the coming days, we will remain in close touch with the Government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of what took place so that we can work together to prevent tragedies like this in the future,” the statement said.

In New York, the United National Security Council issued a statement condemning the militants’ terrorist attack and said all perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of such “reprehensible acts” must be brought to justice.

In the final assault, the remaining band of militants killed the hostages before 11 of them were in turn cut down by the special forces, Algeria’s state news agency said. The military launched its Saturday assault to prevent a fire started by the extremists from engulfing the complex and blowing it up, the report added.

A total of 685 Algerian and 107 foreigner workers were freed over the course of the four-day standoff, the ministry statement said, adding that the group of militants that attacked the Saharan natural gas complex consisted of 32 men of various nationalities, including three Algerians and explosives experts.

The military also said it confiscated heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, missiles and grenades attached to suicide belts.

Sonatrach, the Algerian state oil company running the Ain Amenas site along with BP and Norway’s Statoil, said the entire refinery had been mined with explosives, and that the process of clearing it out is now under way.

Algeria has fought its own Islamist rebellion since the 1990s, elements of which later declared allegiance to al-Qaida and then set up new groups in the poorly patrolled wastes of the Sahara along the borders of Niger, Mali, Algeria and Libya, where they flourished.

The standoff has put the spotlight on those al-Qaida linked groups that roam the remote areas, threatening vital infrastructure and energy interests. The militants initially said their operation was intended to stop a French attack on Islamist militants in neighboring Mali - though they later said it was two months in the planning, long before the French intervention.

The militants, who were from a Mali-based al-Qaida splinter group run by an Algerian, attacked the plant Wednesday morning. Armed with machine guns and rocket launchers in four-wheel-drive vehicles, they attacked a pair of buses taking foreign workers to the airport. The buses’ military escort drove off the attackers in a blaze of gunfire that sent bullets zinging over the heads of crouching workers. A Briton and an Algerian - probably a security guard- were killed.

The militants then turned to the vast gas complex, divided between the workers’ living quarters and the refinery itself, and seized hostages, the Algerian government said. The gas flowing to the site was cut off.

On Thursday, Algerian helicopters kicked off the military’s first assault on the complex by opening fire on a convoy carrying kidnappers and their hostages to stop them from escaping, resulting in many deaths, according to witnesses.

The accounts of hostages who escaped the standoff showed that they faced dangers from both the kidnappers and the military.

Ruben Andrada, 49, a Filipino civil engineer who works as one of the project management staff members for the Japanese company JGC Corp., described how he and his colleagues were used as human shields by the kidnappers, which did little to deter the Algerian military.

On Thursday, about 35 hostages guarded by 15 militants were loaded into seven sport utility vehicles in a convoy to move them from the housing complex to the refinery, Andrada said. The militants placed “an explosive cord” around their necks, and the hostages were told it would detonate if they tried to run away, he said.

“When we left the compound, there was shooting all around,” Andrada said, as Algerian helicopters attacked with guns and missiles. “I closed my eyes. We were going around in the desert. To me, I left it all to fate.”

The vehicle Andrada was in overturned, allowing him and a few others to escape. He suffered cuts and bruises, and was grazed by a bullet on his right elbow. He later saw the demolished remains of other vehicles and the severed leg of one of the gunmen.

While the Algerian government had admitted by Saturday that 23 hostages were dead, the militants claimed through the Mauritanian news website ANI that the helicopter attack alone killed 35 hostages.

One American, a Texan - Frederick Buttaccio from the Houston suburb of Katy - was among the dead. “Fred spent a lifetime experiencing the world and always respecting everyone he met, no matter their position, culture, or religion,” the family said in a statement Saturday.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Saturday that also killed was a Frenchman, Yann Desjeux, who was a former member of the French special forces and part of the security team. The remaining three French nationals who were at the plant are now free, the Foreign Ministry said.

The British government said Saturday that it is trying to determine the fate of six people from Britain.

Prime Minister David Cameron said, “There is no justification for taking innocent life in this way. Our determination is stronger than ever to work with allies right around the world to root out and defeat this terrorist scourge and those who encourage it.”

The Norwegian government said there were five Norwegians unaccounted for.

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said Saturday that one Romanian hostage was killed during the siege, and the Malaysian government said two of its citizens were still missing.

The attack by the Masked Brigade, founded by Algerian militant Moktar Belmoktar, had been in the works for two months, a member of the brigade told the ANI news outlet.

The kidnappers focused on the foreign workers, largely leaving alone the hundreds of Algerian workers who were briefly held hostage before being released or escaping.

Several of the workers arrived haggard-looking Friday on a late-night flight into Algiers and described how the militants stormed the living quarters and immediately separated out the foreigners.

Mohamed, a 37-year-old nurse who like the others wouldn’t allow his last name to be used for fear of trouble for himself or his family, said at least five people were shot to death, their bodies still in front of the infirmary when he left Thursday night.

Chabane, an Algerian who worked in food services, said he fled out the window and was hiding when he heard the militants speaking among themselves with Libyan, Egyptian and Tunisian accents. At one point, he said, they caught a Briton.

“They threatened him until he called out in English to his friends, telling them, ‘Come out, come out. They’re not going to kill you. They’re looking for the Americans,’” Chabane said.

“A few minutes later, they blew him away.” Information for this article was contributed by Paul Schemm, Karim Kebir, Aomar Ouali, Oliver Teves, Elaine Ganley, Sylvia Hui, Jan M. Olsen and Peter Spielmann of The Associated Press; and by Adam Nossiter, Steven Erlanger, Scott Sayare and Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times.