In Amenas, Algeria — Algeria warned other nations
to prepare Monday for a higher body count from a hostage bloodbath at a
gas plant that was overrun in what France called an "act of war" by
Islamist militants.
Algerian troops on Sunday
reportedly found the bodies of 25 hostages and captured five kidnappers
at the In Amenas gas plant, deep in the Sahara desert, a day after
storming the remaining part of the complex still in militant hands.
Governments scrambled to track down missing citizens as more details
emerged after the final showdown between special forces and extremists
who had taken hundreds hostage, demanding an end to French military
intervention in Mali.
Dozens of hostages appear
to have died. Survivors' photos seen by AFP showed bodies riddled with
bullets, some with their heads half blown away by the impact of the
gunfire.
"They were brutally executed," said an
Algerian who identified himself as Brahim, after escaping the ordeal,
referring to Japanese victims gunned down by the hostage-takers.
Witnesses have said nine Japanese people connected to plant builder JGC
were killed in the 72-hour ordeal. One Japanese man who survived gave a
chilling account published Monday in the Daily Yomiuri newspaper.
The unidentified man was quoted as telling colleagues how the gunmen
had dragged him from his barricaded room, handcuffed him and executed
two hostages standing nearby.
"I was prepared to
die," he said, before his captors abandoned him and other hostages who
had been bundled into a vehicle that came under a hail of bullets. He
then trudged for an hour through the desert to safety.
At least 23 foreigners and Algerians had been confirmed killed since the crisis erupted on Wednesday.
Ennahar television reported that the bodies of 25 hostages were found
on Sunday by security forces combing through the plant, and that five
hostage-takers had been captured alive.
Thirty-two kidnappers were also killed in the standoff, and the army
freed 685 Algerian workers and 107 foreigners, the interior ministry
said.
"I fear that it (the death toll) may be
revised upward," Algerian Communications Minister Mohamed Said told a
radio station, ahead of a news conference at 1330 GMT on Monday by Prime
Minister Abdelmalek Sellal.
French Defense
Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the hostage-taking as an "act of
war" because of the large number of hostages involved – the biggest
since the 2008 attack by Islamist extremists on the Indian city of
Mumbai.
'We're looking for Christians'
The one-eyed mastermind of the hostage-taking, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, said
in a video posted online that it was carried out by 40 fighters from
the Muslim world and "European countries".
His
Al-Qaeda-linked group "Signatories in Blood" threatened to stage attacks
on nations involved in the French-led operation to evict Islamists from
Algeria's neighbor Mali, and said it had been open to negotiations.
"But the Algerian army did not respond... preferring to stage an attack
which led to the elimination of the hostages," it said in a message
published by the Mauritanian news agency ANI.
Most hostages were freed on Thursday in the first Algerian rescue
operation, which was initially viewed by foreign governments as hasty,
before the focus of public condemnation turned on the jihadists.
"The blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it
out, and the United States condemns their actions in the strongest
possible terms," President Barack Obama said, with one American
confirmed dead.
Prime Minister David Cameron
said six Britons and one British resident were thought to have been
killed in the hostage crisis, which he said was a "stark reminder" of
the threat of global terrorism.
Among the other
hostages killed were at least one Algerian, one Colombian and two
Romanians. Those still unaccounted for include several Japanese
nationals, five Norwegians, two Americans and two Malaysians.
The plant is run by Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil and Sonatrach of Algeria.
An Algerian employee of BP who identified himself as Abdelkader said he
was at a security post on Wednesday with colleagues when he saw a jeep
with seven people inside smash through the barrier and screech to a
halt.
One of the militants demanded their mobile phones and ordered them not to move, before disabling the security cameras.
"He said: 'You are Algerians and Muslims, you have nothing to fear.
We're looking for Christians, who kill our brothers in Mali and
Afghanistan and plunder our resources'."
Witnesses agreed that the hostage-takers were well informed about the In
Amenas complex, close to the Libyan border, and suspected inside help. —
Agence France-Presse
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