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After Hostage Standoff in Algeria, Death Toll Is Unclear As Rescue Operation Continues in Algeria, Fate of Hostages Remains Unclear
(about 7 hours later)
BAMAKO, Mali — Without warning other governments, Algeria mounted an assault on Thursday on the heavily armed fighters holding American and other hostages at a remote Sahara gas field facility, freeing captives and killing kidnappers but leaving some hostages dead and foreign leaders scrambling to find out the fates of their citizens. BAMAKO, Mali — An Algerian military operation against heavily armed kidnappers holding American and other hostages at a remote gas field facility in the Sahara continued Friday, and the fate of some captives remained unclear.
Almost a day after the raid, there was no official word on Friday on the number of hostages who had been freed, killed or still held captive. Estimates of the foreign casualties ranged from 4 to 35, though one Algerian official said the higher figure was “exaggerated.” Adding to the deep uncertainties, a spokesman for the militants, who belong to a group called Al Mulathameen, said Friday that they planned further attacks in Algeria, according to a report on Friday by the Mauritanian news agency ANI, which maintains frequent contact with militant groups in the region. The spokesman called upon Algerians to “keep away from the installations of foreign companies, because we will suddenly attack where no one would expect it,” ANI reported.
In London on Friday, British officials said the Algerian authorities had not informed them that the military operation deep in the Sahara had been concluded. Until the British heard otherwise, one official said, speaking in return for anonymity, “we are working on the basis that it’s an ongoing operation.” A United States Africa Command spokesman, Ben Benson, said an Air Force aircraft had landed at an airstrip near the facility and was evacuating Americans and people from other countries involved in the hostage event. He said they would be flown to an American facility in Europe.
The official declined to comment on widespread reports that British authorities were bracing for high casualty figures among up to 20 Britons thought to have been working at the installation. French officials said on Friday that there had been “very few” French nationals at the site and at least two of them were safe. The Algerian military operation began on Thursday without consultation with the foreign governments whose citizens worked at the plant. It has been marked by a fog of conflicting reports, compounded by the remoteness of the gas plant, near a town called In Amenas hundreds of miles across the desert from the Algerian capital, Algiers, and close to the Libyan border.
Algeria’s reported silence about the situation on the ground seemed to deepen frustration among foreign governments with citizens who had worked at the plant, close to the Libyan border. Algeria’s state radio, citing an official source, reported on Friday that 18 militants had been killed, the first precise death count offered by state media. But there was no official word on the number of hostages who had been freed, killed or were still held captive. Estimates of the foreign casualties ranged from 4 to 35, though one Algerian official said the higher figure was “exaggerated.”
On Thursday, despite requests for communication and pleas to consider the safety of their abducted citizens, the United States, Britain and Japan said they had not been told in advance about the military assault, stirring frustration that the Algerians might have been overly aggressive and caused needless casualties. On Friday, the official Algerian government news service said the country’s special forces were seeking to reach a “peaceful solution” with a “terrorist group” that was holding hostages at the gas field. The account gave some sense of the scale of the operation, saying about 650 people had been freed or had escaped, including 573 Algerians and “more than half of the 132” foreigners — the highest figures to emerge from several days of confused and unconfirmed tallies. Many of the employees inside the sprawling facility hunkered down during the military operation, and never came into contact with the kidnappers before slipping out.
But the Algerian government, which has a history of violent suppression of Islamist militancy, stood by its decision to deal forcefully with the kidnappers, who were holding Algerians and citizens of nine other countries. But that still seemed to leave dozens unaccounted for.
“Those who think we will negotiate with terrorists are delusional,” the communications minister, Mohand Saïd Oublaïd, said in an announcement about the assault on the facility near In Amenas, in eastern Algeria, close to the Libya border. “Those who think we will surrender to their blackmail are delusional.” Speaking in Parliament, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said the number of Britons at risk was estimated late Thursday at “less than 30.” That number has now been “quite significantly reduced,” he said, adding that he could not give details because the crisis is continuing.
The midday assault came more than 24 hours after a militant group, which the Algerians said had ties to jihadis in the region, ambushed a bus carrying gas-field workers to a nearby airport and then seized the compound. It was one of the boldest abductions of foreign workers in years. Offering a broad account of Algeria’s handling of the operation, he told lawmakers: “We were not informed of this in advance. I was told by the Algerian prime minister while it was taking place. He said that the terrorists had tried to flee, that they judged there to be an immediate threat to the lives of the hostages and had felt obliged to respond.”
The abductions were meant to avenge France’s armed intervention in neighboring Mali, Mr. Oublaïd said, a conflict that has escalated since French warplanes began striking Islamist fighters who have carved out a vast haven there. He added: “This is a large and complex site and they are still pursuing terrorists and possibly some of the hostages in other areas of the site. The Algerian prime minister has just told me this morning that they are now looking at all possible routes to resolving this crisis.”
On Thursday, the United States became more deeply involved in the war, working with the French to determine how to best deploy American C-5 cargo planes to ferry French troops and equipment into Mali, according to an American military official. BP, the British-based energy giant that jointly controls the gas installation in Algeria, said in a statement on Friday that there was a “small number of BP employees” at the facility “whose current location and situation remain uncertain.” The company said it flew out 11 of its staff members along with hundreds of employees of other oil companies on Thursday.
The United States has long been wary about stepping more directly into the Mali conflict, worried that it could provoke precisely the kind of anti-Western attack that took place in Algeria, with deadly consequences. After the raid to free the hostages, the Algerians acknowledged a price had been paid. The Japanese government said on Friday that three of its citizens had escaped but that 14 were still unaccounted for. On Friday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta met with Mr. Cameron in London as Pentagon officials were continuing to try to learn details about the raid.
“The operation resulted in the neutralization of a large number of terrorists and the liberation of a considerable number of hostages,” said Mr. Oublaïd, the communications minister. “Unfortunately, we deplore also the death of some, as well as some who were wounded.” “We are working around the clock to ensure the safe return of our citizens and we will continue to be in close consultation with the Algerian government,” Mr. Panetta said in a speech in London before meeting with Mr. Cameron.
Algerian national radio described a scene of pandemonium and high alert at the public hospital in the town of In Amenas, where wounded hostages and those who escaped were sent. The director of the hospital, Dr. Shahir Moneir, said in the report that wounded foreign hostages were transferred to the capital, Algiers. Senior American military officials said an unarmed American Predator drone was monitoring the gas field site. One senior official said that seven to eight Americans were among the hostages — the first official indication of the number of Americans involved — and that he did not know if any had been killed in the raid.
In a telephone interview from the hospital, an Algerian who escaped, who identified himself as Mohamed Elias, said some of the hostages had exploited the chaos created by the Algerian assault to flee. “We used the opportunity,” he said, “and we just escaped.” On Thursday, despite requests for communication and pleas to consider the safety of their abducted citizens, the United States, Britain and Japan said they had not been told in advance about the military assault, stirring frustration that the Algerians might have been overly aggressive and caused needless casualties. But the Algerian government, which has a history of violent suppression of Islamist militancy, stood by its decision to deal forcefully with the kidnappers, who were holding Algerians and citizens of nine other countries.
Senior American military officials said that aides traveling in London with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta were struggling to get basic information about the raid, and that an unarmed American Predator drone was monitoring the gas-field site. “Those who think we will negotiate with terrorists are delusional,” the communications minister, Mohand Saïd Oublaïd, said in an announcement about the assault on the facility near In Amenas, in eastern Algeria.
One senior official said that possibly seven to eight Americans were among the hostages — the first official indication of the number of Americans involved — and that he did not know if any had been killed in the raid. “Those who think we will surrender to their blackmail are delusional.”
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 that Mr. Cameron had learned of the raid through Britain’s own intelligence sources and that “the Algerians are aware that we would have preferred to have been consulted in advance.” Citing information from Algerian officials, Mr. Cameron told Parliament that the kidnappers’ attack began on Wednesday when “the terrorists first attacked two buses en route to the Amenas airfield before attacking the residential compound and the gas facility at the installation. It appears to have been a large, well-coordinated and heavily armed assault and it is probable that it had been preplanned.”
Mr. Cameron told reporters the situation was “very dangerous” as he and other British officials appeared to prepare for bad news. The gravity of the crisis prompted him to cancel plans to deliver a major speech in Amsterdam. The attackers took hostages at both the residential compound and at the gas plant itself, he said.
Japan also expressed strong concern, saying Algeria had failed not only to advise of the operation ahead of time, but to heed its request to halt the operation because it was endangering the hostages. Earlier reports had suggested that the Algerian military struck when the assailants sought to move with their captives.
“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, Abdelmalek Sellal, by telephone late Thursday. Stephen McFaul, 36, a hostage from Northern Ireland, told relatives that the kidnappers put explosives around his neck but that he was able to escape after Algerian forces attacked a convoy of five vehicles in which the abductors were seeking to transport their captives, according to his brother Brian McFaul. Four of the vehicles were hit, but the one in which he Stephen McFaul was traveling crashed and he fled, the brother said.
The situation is “very confused,” President François Hollande of France said at a news conference in Paris and was “evolving hour by hour.” Mr. Hollande gave the first official confirmation that French citizens were among the captives. The abductions — among the boldest seizures of foreign hostages in years — were meant to avenge France’s armed intervention in neighboring Mali, said Mohand Saïd Oublaïd, the Algerian communications minister. That conflict has escalated since French warplanes began striking Islamist fighters who have carved out a vast haven there.
A European diplomat who was involved in the effort to coordinate a Western response to the hostage seizure said that the information available to the United States, France and Britain had been “confusing at best, and sometimes contradictory.” The fighters had been prepared to attack the site for nearly two months, the militants’ spokesman said, according to the ANI report, because they believed that the Algerian government, which has emerged in news reports as the focus of the group’s anger, “was surely going to be the ally of France” in the Malian conflict.
Several Western officials complained that the Algerians appeared to have taken none of the usual care exercised to minimize casualties when trying to free hostages. As France continued to build up reinforcements in Mali, aiming to reach 2,500 soldiers on the ground, the Malian Army said on Friday that its troops had retaken the central town of Konna, which Islamists seized at the beginning of the conflict.
“They care deeply about their sovereign rights,” said the European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s delicacy. On Thursday, the United States became more deeply involved in the war, working with the French to determine how to best deploy American C-5 cargo planes to ferry French troops and equipment into Mali, according to an American military official. The United States has long been wary about stepping more directly into the Mali conflict, worried that it could provoke precisely the kind of anti-Western attack that took place in Algeria, with deadly consequences. After the raid to free the hostages, the Algerians acknowledged a price had been paid.
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 the Algerian authorities to give them safe passage with their captives. “The operation resulted in the neutralization of a large number of terrorists and the liberation of a considerable number of hostages,” said Mr. Oublaïd. “Unfortunately, we deplore also the death of some, as well as some who were wounded.”
The Algerian news site T.S.A. quoted a local official, Sidi Knaoui, as saying that 10 foreigners and 40 Algerians had managed to flee after the kidnappers made several attempts to leave with the hostages. In a telephone interview, one Algerian who escaped, who identified himself as Mohamed Elias, said some of the hostages had exploited the chaos created by the Algerian assault to flee. “We used the opportunity,” he said, “and we just escaped.”
Ireland confirmed that an Irish citizen, Stephen McFaul, had escaped. The man had contacted his family and was “understood to be safe and well and no longer a hostage,” Irish officials said.

Adam Nossiter reported from Bamako and Alan Cowell and Scott Sayare from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Rick Gladstone from New York; Elisabeth Bumiller, Julia Werdigier and John F. Burns from London; Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger from Washington; Martin Fackler and Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo; and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.

Earlier, a French TV station, France 24, quoted an unidentified hostage as saying the attackers “threatened to blow up the gas field.”
Algeria’s interior minister, Daho Ould Kablia, said the seizure of the gas field had been overseen by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian who fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and had reportedly established his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other Qaeda leaders.
The description of the leader was one of the most specific pieces of information given by the Algerians on a day of vague and contradictory accounts of the abduction and raid. Well into the night, officials warned that hostages were still being held inside the compound and that the crisis remained unresolved.
“It’s a painful situation. It’s not over,” said a senior Algerian official. “I can’t tell you how many are left in there. No numbers. None at all. Nothing is certain.”

Adam Nossiter reported from Bamako, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Alan Cowell and Scott Sayare from Paris, Elisabeth Bumiller and John F. Burns from London, Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger from Washington, Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo, and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.