Armed insurgents attacked the In Amenas Gas installation, a joint venture among Norway’s Statoil, Britain’s BP and Algerian state-owned Sonatrach, in the early hours of Wednesday.
There are no clear estimates of the number of people held hostage, but reports suggest 300 Algerians and 41 foreign nationals including French, American and Japanese, were captured.
A group called Al Mulathameen (The Brigade of the Masked Ones), a group affiliated to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), is believed to have held the workers captive.
According to Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kabila, the raid was masterminded by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran fighter involved in insurgencies in Afghanistan and Algeria
Raid to free hostages
Algerian state media reported that the army had taken control of the complex but offered no information on potential casualties. While al-Jazeera reported that 35 hostages and 15 insurgents had been killed in the operation, Reuters reported that six hostages had been killed thus far and 25 had escaped. Algeria’s state APS news agency reported that 12 hostages had been killed since the start of the raid on Thursday. About 30 hostages were still unaccounted for.
The Algerian army has responded to criticism over a deadly raid to free hostages -
“The operation came in response to a decision by the terrorists to kill all hostages and perpetrate a real massacre,”
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