Rescue vehicles and a soldier are seen near Ain Amenas, the gas plant where the hostage-taking occurred, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. Algeria's special forces stormed the natural gas complex in a final assault Saturday, ending the four-day stand-off in a bloody confrontation that left at least 80 dead.
CBS NEWS
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.
Agence France Presse reports local officials are claiming that five kidnappers were found alive on site after the raid.
In a statement, the Masked Brigade, the group that claimed to have
masterminded the takeover, warned of more such attacks against any
country backing 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.
Algeria said after
Saturday's assault by government forces 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 because of the sensitivity
of the situation.
"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 were also known to include at least one American as well
as Filipino and French workers. Nearly two dozen foreigners by some
estimates 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.
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.
Authorities
said the bloody takeover was carried out Wednesday 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 the attack was payback against Algeria for
allowing over-flights of French aircraft headed to Mali and for closing
its long border with Mali. In an earlier communication, the Brigade
claimed to have carried out the attack in the name of al Qaeda.
Armed
with heavy 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 still 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.
"You
see our demands are so easy, so easy if you want to negotiate with us,"
al-Nigiri said in the recording broadcast by Algerian television. "We
want the prisoners you have, the comrades who were arrested and
imprisoned 15 years ago. We want 100 of them."
In another
phone call, al-Nigiri said that half the militants had been killed by
the Algerian army on Thursday and that he was ready to blow up the
remaining hostages if security forces attacked again. An organization
that monitors videos from radicals posted one showing al-Nigiri with
what appeared to be an explosive belt around his waist.
The Algerians' use of forced 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."
David
Plouffe, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said that al Qaeda
and al Qaeda-affiliated groups remain a threat in North Africa and
other parts of the world, and that the U.S. is determined to help other
countries destroy those networks.
Speaking on "Fox News
Sunday," Plouffe said the tragedy in Algeria shows once again "that all
across the globe countries are threatened by terrorists who will use
civilians to try and advance their twisted and sick agenda."