Hostages missing after raid in Algeria
In Amenas, Algeria – Algerian special forces have freed about 100 foreign hostages from Islamist gunmen at a remote gas plant near the Libyan border, but some 30 are still missing, national media says.
‘‘Around 100 foreigners out of 132 hostages seized by a terrorist group that attacked the Tiguentourine gas plant on Wednesday have been freed,’’ the APS news agency reported today, citing a security official.
The Algerian agency had said earlier that ‘‘more than half’’ of the foreign hostages, as well as 573 Algerians had been freed in the rescue operation.
Amid foreign criticism over the haste of an Algerian military assault on the remote desert site, APS said the army was trying to free those foreigners still held by al Qaeda-linked militants across the complex deep in the Sahara near the Libyan border.
British Prime Minister David Cameron warned that the In Amenas plant was a ‘‘large and complex site and they are still pursuing terrorists and possibly some of the hostages in other areas of the site’’.
Some of those who escaped or spoke of their ordeals said they had had explosives wrapped around their necks. Others said they hid, petrified, under beds, in gaps above ceilings or wherever they could.
The Algerian operation was launched yesterday, a day after kidnappers seized the plant to avenge what they said was Algiers’ support for French air strikes in neighbouring Mali.
The kidnappers said 34 captives were killed in the army assault, but an Algerian security source called that ‘‘fantasy,’’ saying 18 of more than 30 Islamist gunmen were killed.
Cameron, who said he was ‘‘disappointed’’ not to have been told by the Algerians in advance, said ‘‘significantly’’ fewer than 30 British citizens remained at risk at the field, operated jointly by Britain’s BP, Norway’s Statoil and Sonatrach of Algeria.
BP said a ‘‘small number’’ of its staff were unaccounted for today.
United States Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said in London US officials were ‘‘working around the clock’’ to secure the safe return of an unknown number of American hostages.
Japanese plant builder JGC said it had now accounted for 17 of its employees, but the whereabouts of 61 more remained unknown.
Statoil said another of its Norwegian employees was now safe, but that the fate of eight others was unknown.
France said two of its nationals had returned safely but it had no word on two others reportedly seized.
Vienna said one Austrian had been released.
One man from Northern Ireland, Stephen McFaul, escaped. His brother said he fled when the convoy he was in came under army fire.
He had earlier ‘‘had explosives tied around his neck’’.
The gunmen from a group known as ‘‘Signatories in Blood’’ want to negotiate an end to French intervention in Mali and exchange American hostages for prisoners held in the US, Mauritanian news agency ANI quoted sources close to their leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, as saying today.