Algeria Intervenes in Hostage Crisis as Mali’s War Spreads Regional Chaos
KJETIL ALSVIK / HANDOUT An undated handout photo provided by Norwegian oil company Statoil showing the gas facility in In Amenas, Algeria.
One day after Islamic militants invaded an Algerian gas field and seized dozens of Western workers, there are fears that several of the foreign hostages might be dead—potentially escalating the military intervention in neighboring Mali into a full-scale regional conflict. For months, a parade of Western diplomats and politicians, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and French President François Hollande, have visited Mali’s big, richer neighbor—Algeria—to try to persuade the government to deploy its crack military forces against al-Qaeda fighters in control of northern Mali. For months Algeria rebuffed their pleas, despite its long military and intelligence ties with the U.S., reluctant to be dragged into a Western-led fight and risk igniting a bloody conflict at home.
But the fight has come to Algeria. Reports suggest that at least 24 foreign hostages were killed when Algerian soldiers mounted a raid on the natural-gas compound in the south-east of the country to free them Thursday; the Algerian state news agency says some 600 hostages have been freed by the operation. As news filters in from the massive, remote facility, fears now grow that the week-old
French military intervention in northern Mali is spinning into a broader war, drawing in one of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers—precisely the situation Algeria was determined to avoid. “No matter which way Algeria deals with this, this will have a heavy consequence,” says Jean-Pierre Filiu, a specialist on the country at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, who accompanied President Hollande last month to the capital Algiers where the French leader met President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Even then, the assumption was that despite jihadi networks in control across its southern border, Algeria would likely remain relatively secure. “Never, ever, did the jihadis touch the oil and gas facilities of Algeria,” Filiu says. “This is totally unprecedented.”
Unprecedented, but apparently simple. Before dawn on Wednesday, about 20 armed militants invaded the living quarters at the Ain Anemas natural-gas field, about 1,000 miles from Algiers, and seized 41 foreign hostages, among them seven Americans, as well as Britons, Japanese, French, Norwegian and Irish citizens. An unknown number of Algerian workers were also kidnapped. The militant group, calling itself the “Masked Brigade,” is led by an Algerian-born jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who is believed to have masterminded several kidnappings, and to have ties to the region’s main terror franchise, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Filiu believes the group had probably driven from northern Mali, hundreds of miles across the Sahara—a sign of their stunning ability to operate in the remote desert. “They have a tremendous asset with the extreme mobility of their commandos,” he says. “They move at night with no headlights, at high speeds, totally undetected.”
Keeping those commandos away from its oil and gas wealth is critical for Algeria, since that comprises some 60% of its revenues and more than 95% of its exports. Ain Anemas, run jointly with BP and Norway’s Statoil, pumps about one-sixth of the natural gas produced by Algeria, which is Europe’s third-biggest gas supplier, and a key supplier to the U.S. Algeria also has about 12.2 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the third biggest reserves in Africa after Libya and Nigeria, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The well-armed Algerian forces had surrounded the compound since Wednesday’s attack, firing sporadically, while the government attempts to defuse the crisis politically, conferring with Tuareg tribesmen who have links to al-Qaeda groups, and consulting U.S. and French officials through Wednesday night, according to the Associated Press, citing an unnamed Algerian security official. From inside the compound, hostages described a terrifying ordeal, saying captors fitted some of them with explosives. “The situation is deteriorating,” an Irish hostage told Al Jazeera by phone. “We are worried because of the continuation of the firing.”
The crisis is deeply worrying for Algeria, too. As darkness fell on Thursday night, there were confused reports about the state of the hostages, with one stating that only a handful of them were alive.
With 4,500 miles of borders with Niger, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Mali, the country is huge, about the size of Western Europe, and straddles about half of the Sahara Desert, where al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has built up an impressive arsenal, using a war chest of tens of millions of euros amassed in part from hostage-ransom payments by European governments. Alarmed at the jihadist groups’ growing wealth, Algerian diplomats led an effort in 2010 to get the U.N. to ban governments from paying ransoms, which they claimed were thwarting counter-terrorist efforts. At that time, the Algerian president’s advisor, Kamel Rezag Bara, told me, “If you think about the fact that you can buy anyone in this region—anyone—for €5,000, you can see the problem.”
The problem for Algeria and its neighbors has worsened since then, partly thanks to the mountain of weaponry that poured out of Libya after Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall in October, 2011. Since then, Algerian officials have sidestepped confrontation with jihadists, instead opting to push them deeper into the southern Sahara areas, away from the country’s critical energy infrastructure, and across its borders. At the same time, Algeria maintained contact with Ansar Dine, one of the more prominent Islamist groups running roughshod over northern Mali, and Algeria’s critics say it has too readily tried to avoid conflict with some of the more criminal militias in the region.
At stake for Algeria’s government is its ability to keep the country at peace, something on which Bouteflika has staked his presidency. Since independence from France, Algeria has been ruled by the same revolutionary—now authoritarian—political party. Bouteflika came to power at the end of a brutal civil war with Islamist forces, which killed about 150,000 Algerians between 1991 and 1999. And until now, the government’s tactic appeared to work: By avoiding all-out battle against jihadists, the militants avoided attacking Algeria’s energy facilities.
But all that changed when France began bombing northern Mali last Friday. Algeria granted French fighter jets overflight permission. It also sealed its southern border with northern Mali, threatening to starve Northern Mali’s jihadists of fuel—essential in their fight against French and African troops—since most of the area’s gas stations are located in southern Algeria. “These columns of vehicles require a lot of fuel,” says François Heisbourg, an expert on the region, who is chairman of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. “It was perceived as a sign that Algeria would not let these guys do whatever they were going to do.”
END
UPDATES
BBC world News, 19 January 2013
Algeria Hostage Crisis: What we Know
Hundreds of workers, Algerians and expatriates, were working at the plant when it was attacked
A mass hostage-taking by Islamist militants at a Western-run gas installation in eastern Algeria has ended in bloodshed, state media report.
On Saturday, Algerian troops moved in to end the siege at the In Amenas gas facility, in the Sahara desert. Thirty-two Islamist militants, linked to al-Qaeda, and 23 hostages died during the crisis, the APS news agency said.
Algerian forces took action on 17 January, barely 24 hours after the gunmen overran the plant's living quarters, trapping dozens of foreign workers and hundreds of Algerian employees.
After another raid on 19 January, the Algerian interior ministry, citing provisional figures, said 685 Algerian workers and 107 had been freed by the military actions.
The interior ministry did not confirm the nationalities of the dead, but local officials told the state-run Algerie Presse Service (APS) news agency that two Britons and two Filipinos had been killed in Thursday's raid, in addition to a Briton and an Algerian who died when militants first attacked the plant. Britain has confirmed only one death.
Romania's prime minister also confirmed on Saturday that a Romanian national had died.
Since the crisis began on Wednesday morning, information about events on the ground has been largely controlled by the Algerian authorities and the hostage-takers themselves, who spoke to media outside the country.
Foreign states with citizens among the hostages appear to have had little say in the handling of the rescue operation which, according to testimony from a surviving hostage, resulted in carnage.
'Foreign Gunmen'
What seems clear is that the hostage-takers belonged to a new Islamist group formed by a veteran Algerian militant and kidnapper, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who recently broke with al-Qaeda.
Profile: Mokhtar Belmokhtar
Mokhtar Belmokhtar received military training in Afghanistan
Mokhtar Belmokhtar - who is accused of ordering the attack on a gas facility in eastern Algeria in which foreign workers have been killed and taken hostage - is a one-eyed war veteran with the nickname "Mr Marlboro".
He acquired the nickname because of his role in cigarette-smuggling across the Sahel region to finance his jihad, now waged under the banner of the Signed-in-Blood Battalion.
"Belmokhtar has been active in political, ideological and criminal circles in the Sahara for the past two decades," Jon Marks, an academic at the London-based think-tank Chatham House, told the BBC.
Born in Ghardaia in eastern Algeria in 1972, Mr Belmokhtar - according to interviews posted on Islamist websites - was attracted as a schoolboy to waging jihad.
Inspired to avenge the 1989 killing of Palestinian Islamist ideologue Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, he travelled to Afghanistan as a 19 year old to receive training from al-Qaeda.
"While there, Belmokhtar claims [on Islamist websites] to have made connections with jihadis from around the world,".
"Moreover, Belmokhtar claims to have been to battlefronts 'from Qardiz to Jalalabad to Kabul'."
When he returned to Algeria in 1993, the country was already in the throes of conflict after the French-backed Algerian military annulled elections that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win.
Belmokhtar joined the conflict, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and became a key figure in the militant Armed Islamist Group (GIA) and later the breakaway Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).
Algerian journalist Mohamed Arezki Himeur says Mr Belmokhtar lost his left eye in fighting with government troops in the 1990s and now wears a false eye.
"He has been condemned to death [by Algeria's courts] several times," he adds.
When the GSPC merged with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Belmokhtar headed an AQIM battalion in the desert between Algeria and Mali.
After AQIM stripped him of his title as "emir of the Sahel" as a result of in-fighting, Mr Belmokhtar launched a new group last year, known variously as the Signed-in-Blood Battalion, the Masked Men Brigade and the Khaled Abu al-Abbas Brigade.
The attack on the gas facility was its first big operation, showing that he remains influential despite his marginalisation within AQIM.
"He knows the Sahara Desert very well," says Mr Himeur. ]
In recent years, Belmokhtar has gained notoriety as a hostage-taker across the vast Sahara, often demanding multi-million dollar ransoms from Western governments which - along with cigarette-smuggling - finances his jihad.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar
- Fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in late 1980s
- Former leading figure in Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Left in late 2012 after falling out with leaders
- Now heads a group known variously as the Signed-in-Blood Battalion, the Masked Men Brigade and the Khaled Abu al-Abbas Brigade
- Known as "The One-Eyed" as he often wears an eyepatch over a lost eye
- French intelligence has dubbed him "The Uncatchable", while locals refer to him as "Mr Marlboro" for his illicit cigarette operation
Former UN Niger envoy Robert Fowler was captured by Belmokhtar loyalists outside Niger's capital, Niamey, in December 2008.
"We were frog-marched and thrown into the back of a truck... We began our descent into hell - a 1,000km [600-mile] journey northwards, into the Sahara Desert," he told the BBC.
"I think I know instinctively what they [the latest hostages captured in Algeria] are going through."
In its report, the Jamestown Foundation says Belmokhtar has been able to operate across borders because of his deep ties to the region.
"Key to Belmokhtar's Saharan activities has been his strong connections with local Tuareg communities... Belmokhtar is reported to have married four wives from local Arab and Tuareg communities," it said.
Mauritania's Sahara Media website reports that after the Malian Islamist group, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao), took control of the northern city of Gao last year, Belmokhtar "joined the administration of the city".
Last month, the Signed-in-Blood Battalion warned against any attempt to drive out the Islamists from northern Mali.
"We will respond forcefully [to all attackers]; we promise we will follow you to your homes and you will feel pain and we will attack your interests," the group said according to Sahara Media.
Last June, Algerian media reported that Belmokhtar - described in 2002 by French intelligence sources as "uncatchable" - had been killed in clashes between Islamists and Tuareg separatists in northern Mali.
But this turned out to be untrue, with Belmokhtar still a kingpin in the region.
"He is one of the best known warlords of the Sahara," Stephen Ellis, an academic at the African Studies Centre in Leiden in The Netherlands, told Reuters.
On Saturday, the Algerian interior ministry said the group was 32-strong, of which only three were Algerians.
The group, which calls itself the Signed-in-Blood Battalion or the Masked Men Brigade, was formed in 2012.
Despite its split with al-Qaeda, it continues to espouse violent jihad (holy war).
Its spokesman at In Amenas - now believed to be dead - sought to link the hostage-taking to France's recent intervention in Mali against Islamist militants, some of whom are thought to be linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
On Saturday, the Algerian interior ministry said that the group had entered Algeria from "neighbouring countries" in all-terrain vehicles, according to APS. The ministry "foreign military uniforms" belonging to the kidnappers had also been found.
The spokesman, Abu al-Bara, told al-Jazeera TV by telephone on Thursday that the group's demands were being co-ordinated with
"the command in Mali".
Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri has been named as the leader of the hostage-takers
The leader of the hostage-takers at the plant is Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, the Mauritanian ANI news agency says. He is reported to be a veteran fighter from Niger, who joined the hardline Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in 2005.
The gunmen appear to have been heavily armed and well equipped with explosives and rocket-propelled grenades.
Travelling in at least three vehicles, they attacked a bus leaving the plant for the local airport on Wednesday morning, before heading for the living quarters.
Azedine, a radio operator at the gas plant who witnessed their arrival, said they did not appear to be Algerian.
"They were talking in Arabic but I did not understand what they were saying," he told Reuters news agency.
"Some were clean, others were dirty, some with beards, others without, and among them a French national with sunglasses - he looked European."
Hostages
Azedine said one of his foreign colleagues, whom he admired greatly, was killed by the gunmen.
In addition to the Algerian workers, 132 foreigners were trapped at the plant by the gunmen's attack, according to APS.
It was not clear why that number was far higher than the 41 hostages that the militants earlier claimed to be holding.
Some hostages tried to hide, including French caterer Alexandre Berceaux, who has described being rescued by Algerian soldiers after nearly 40 hours in his bedroom.
Reports suggest those who were captured were subjected to a terrifying ordeal by the gunmen.
Speaking by phone to his wife after escaping, Irish
survivor Stephen McFaul said explosives were strapped to hostages. on the second day of the siege as the gunmen made preparations for moving them.
He and others were put on 4x4s. There were five vehicles in all.
And that was when the Algerian security forces mounted the first assault, he said. Four of the vehicles were destroyed by bombs while his own jeep crashed, allowing him to escape.
'The army bombed the trucks'
Two survivors of the ongoing hostage crisis in Algeria, an Irishman and a Frenchman, have given harrowing details of their ordeal.
Stephen McFaul, an electrician from Northern Ireland with Irish citizenship, said he had escaped a bombardment by Algerian security forces in which other hostages died.
Alexandre Berceaux, who worked for a French catering company at the site near In Amenas, said he had hidden for nearly 40 hours in his bedroom before escaping.
Stephen McFaul, Irish electrician
Stephen McFaul is seen here with his sons in an undated photo
After his escape, Mr McFaul spoke by telephone to his wife Angela, who in turn gave details to Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore and Mr McFaul's brother, Brian.
It is now believed one or more helicopters opened fire.
Another survivor, civil engineer Ruben Andrada, told the Associated Press there was "shooting all around" as the 4x4s left the compound.
"I closed my eyes. We were going around in the desert. To me, I left it all to fate," he said.
"The gunman behind me was shooting at the gunship and it was very loud. Then we made a sudden left turn and our Land Cruiser fell on the right side where I was.
"I was pinned down by the guy next to me. I could hear the helicopter hovering above. I was just waiting for a bullet from the helicopter to hit me."
He managed to escape, he told AP, but sustained cuts and bruises, as well as a graze to his elbow from a bullet.
According to a local man who escaped from the plant, the gunmen told Algerian workers there that they would not hurt Muslims.
"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," Abdelkader, 53, told Reuters by telephone. "'We will kill them,' they said."
Details of Saturday's raid are still being pieced together. APS quoted a security source as saying that 11 hostage takers and seven hostages - who appeared to be the last ones being held - died in that raid.
- Bus attack: 0500 local time 16 January: Heavily armed gunmen attack two buses carrying gas field workers towards In Amenas airfield. A Briton and an Algerian die in the fighting.
- Hostages taken: The militants drive to the installation at Tigantourine and take Algerian and foreign workers hostage in the living area and the main gas facility at the complex.
- Army surround complex: Security forces and the Algerian army surround the hostage-takers. Western leaders, including the UK's David Cameron, urge Algeria to consult them before taking action.
- Army attacks: 1200 (1300 GMT) 17 January: Algerian forces attack as militants try to move some of their captives from the facility. Reports say some hostages escape, but others are killed.
- Final assault: The Algerians ended the raid on 19 January, killing the last 11 captors after they had killed seven hostages, state media reported.
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