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Algerian forces launch 'rescue' operation on gas plant hostages

2,370 views · Published 16 February 2013 · 0:47 · Indexed 25 October 2026

Channel: News Direct · 2013 · News & Politics

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An Algerian security source has said 25 foreign hostages, including two Japanese, escaped the remote gas plant in the Sahara Desert on Thursday when Algerian military forces launched an air raid. Reports on the number of people killed during this attack differ. A local source told Reuters the fatalities included six foreign hostages and eight captors, while Mauritania's ANI news agency and Al Jazeera report that 34 captives and 15 captors had been killed. This video was created based on information available at 1735 GMT on Tuesday, January 17.

Forty-one foreigners and at least 180 Algerian workers at a BP natural gas plant were taken hostage on Wednesday morning after militants stormed the plant - a joint venture between British Petroleum, Norway's Statoil and Algeria's Sonatrach. The international incident began at around 5am local time when heavily armed militants attacked a bus and its police escort carrying employees from the plant to a nearby airport.

The militants took dozens of hostages and set up base inside the living quarters of the plant. A hostage told France 24 television that they were tied to explosives.

A local source said as many as 180 Algerian hostages had fled. Local media reports that many were released unharmed.

ANI says that seven foreigner hostages were still being held, including three Belgians, two Americans, one Japanese and one British citizen.

A militant group calling itself the "Battalion of Blood" has claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack was reportedly in retaliation for Algeria's support of France's operation against al-Qaeda-linked groups in Mali.

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