Algeria death toll up to 81

25 more bodies found in refinery

Algerians look at the wreckage of a vehicle near Ain Amenas, Algeria. Algerian bomb squads scouring a gas plant where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage found “numerous” bodies Sunday.
Algerians look at the wreckage of a vehicle near Ain Amenas, Algeria. Algerian bomb squads scouring a gas plant where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage found “numerous” bodies Sunday.

— The death toll from the terrorist siege at a natural-gas plant in the Sahara climbed past 80 on Sunday as Algerian forces searching the refinery for explosives found dozens more bodies, many so badly disfigured it was unclear whether they were hostages or militants, a security official said.

Algerian special forces stormed the plant on Saturday to end the four-day siege, moving in to thwart what government officials said was a plot by the Islamic extremists to blow up the complex and kill all their captives with mines sown throughout the site.

In a statement, the Masked Brigade, the group that claimed to have masterminded the takeover, warned of more such attacks against any country that backs France’s military intervention in neighboring Mali, where the French are trying to stop an advance by Islamic extremists.

“We stress to our Muslim brothers the necessity to stay away from all the Western companies and complexes for their own safety, and especially the French ones,” the statement said.

After Saturday’s assault by government forces, Algeria said that at least 32 extremists and 23 hostages were killed. On Sunday, Algerian bomb squads sent in to blow up or defuse the explosives found 25 more bodies, said the security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“These bodies are difficult to identify. They could be the bodies of foreign hostages or Algerians or terrorists,” the official said.

In addition, a wounded Romanian who had been evacuated died, raising the overall death toll to at least 81.

“Now, of course, people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched a vicious and cowardly attack,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said. Three Britons were killed and another three were feared dead.

The dead hostages included at least one American as well as Filipino and French workers. By some estimates, nearly two dozen foreigners were unaccounted for.

It was unclear whether anyone was rescued in the final assault on the complex, which is run by the Algerian state oil company along with BP and Norway’s Statoil.

Specifics on exactly who was held hostage, who escaped and who was killed remained patchy and contradictory on Sunday, including the number and status of Americans caught up in the events. One senior U.S. official said that all of the American hostages who were seized at the remote gas field had died, including one identified as dead by the State Department on Friday and as many as nine others.

But another U.S. official said that some of the Americans survived. An official with BP identified one surviving American, and the office of a Texas congressman said there was another. A senior Algerian official interviewed on Sunday declared that “seven Americans were liberated.”

Two private Algerian TV stations and an online news site said security forces scouring the plant found five militants hiding out and learned that three others had fled. That information could not be immediately confirmed by security officials.

An Algerian, who had been told by the army not to give his name, told the Daily Mail that the attackers knew the layout of the facility and even names of some employees. They separated Algerians from the foreigners and attached explosives to the latter. They forced an engineer to shut down the communications system, but an emergency system kicked in, allowing some to use their mobile phones.

The Algerian said he heard the kidnappers speak with Egyptian, Libyan and Syrian accents, and that two spoke fluent English.

Even after sprinting 200 yards to safety through a broken fence shortly after fighting began at the natural-gas facility, an Algerian engineer who gave his name to Le Soir d’Algerie newspaper as A. Tahar underwent several searches and identity checks before security forces allowed him to join a group of 400 who had already escaped or been rescued.

Authorities said Wednesday’s bloody takeover was carried out by 32 men from six countries under the command from afar of the one-eyed Algerian bandit Moktar Belmoktar, founder of the Masked Brigade, based in Mali. The attacking force called itself Those Who Sign in Blood.

The Masked Brigade said Sunday that the attack was payback against Algeria for allowing overflights of French aircraft headed to Mali and for closing its long border with Mali. In an earlier communication, the Masked Brigade claimed to have carried out the attack in the name of al-Qaida.

Armed with machine guns, rocket launchers, missiles and grenades, the militants singled out foreign workers at the plant, killing some of them on the spot and attaching explosive belts to others.

Algeria’s tough and uncompromising response to the crisis was typical of its take-no-prisoners approach in confronting terrorists, favoring military action over negotiation. Algerian military forces, backed by attack helicopters, launched two assaults on the plant, the first one on Thursday.

The militants had “decided to succeed in the operation as planned, to blow up the gas complex and kill all the hostages,” Algerian Communications Minister Mohamed Said told state radio.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said the terrorists had tried to blow up the plant on Saturday but managed only to start a small fire. “That’s when they started to execute hostages, and the special forces intervened,” Eide said. Norway’s Statoil said five Norwegians were missing.

An audio recording of Algerian security forces speaking with the head of the kidnappers, Abdel Rahman al-Nigiri, on the second day of the drama indicated the hostage-takers were trying to organize a prisoner swap.

The Algerians’ use of force raised an international outcry from some countries worried about their citizens.

But French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday on French television: “The terrorists ... they’re the ones to blame.” Information for this article was contributed by Aomar Ouali, Elaine Ganley, Paul Schemm and Lori Hinnant of The Associated Press; by Adam Nossiter, Steven Erlanger, Alan Cowell, Stanley Reed, Eric Schmitt, Michael R. Gordon, Michael Schwirtz and Scot Sayare of The New York Times, and by Gergory Viscusi, Salah Slimani, Eddie Buckle, Niklas Magnusson and Mariam Fam of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/21/2013

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