CHAOS:
Hostages were killed yesterday at an Algerian gas plant (above) by terrorists led by Moktar Belmoktar. The US struggled to gather intel on the fate of American captives — even using a Predator drone.
(AFP/Getty)
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An Algerian commando raid to free Americans and dozens of other hostages from an al Qaeda group turned into a bloodbath yesterday at a remote natural-gas plant in the Sahara Desert.
Hours after the dramatic helicopter and ground attack near the Algerian-Libyan border, the United States and its allies were scrambling to find out what went wrong.
Algerian state television said four foreigners — two Britons and two Filipinos — were killed and seven other foreigners were wounded.
But an Algerian security source later said 30 foreign and Algerian hostages were killed and the nationalities of only 15 were known. He also said 11 terrorists died.
And one of the members of the Battalion of Blood, which seized the plant Wednesday, claimed that 41 foreigners, along with 15 militants, were killed when the government troops who had surrounded the plant moved in.
Obama administration officials barely concealed their frustration over the lack of information.
“The situation is very fluid,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters in Washington, DC.
Five hours after the attack began in Amenas, the Algerian government said it was completed.
At the same time, a senior US official told ABC News that only five of 10 American hostages were known to be safe and cautioned that “this is far from over.”
US officials said they offered assistance to the Algerian leadership but were refused.
Just before the government attack, the US military sent an unmanned Predator drone over the plant in an effort to find out what was happening.
The US and other foreigner hostages were kept inside a building. The State Department said the kidnappers put bomb-packed vests on some captives.
As many as 600 Algerian plant workers were also held hostage, but they were not under tight guard and fled when the attack began, one of them told the French newspaper Le Monde.
They entered the country from Libya, Algerian Interior Minister Dahou Ould Kablia said.
An Algerian security source said they were a multinational terror team, with members reportedly from Egypt, Tunisia, Mali, Libya, France and Algeria.
They were believed to be commanded by a one-eyed warlord and former al Qaeda chieftain, Moktar Belmoktar, who wanted vengeance for France’s intervention to stop al Qaeda-linked insurgents from taking over neighboring Mali.
The gunmen told Algerian workers that they would spare Muslims but intended to kill Western hostages, said a local man who escaped.
“The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels,” a man identified only as Abdelkader, 53, said. “We will kill them, they said.”
The Algiers government said it refused to negotiate with the kidnappers but offered to let the terrorists go if they freed the hostages. They said they launched the attack only when the terrorists made their fourth attempt to escape with the hostages.
British officials said Prime Minister David Cameron was not notified of the attack until it was well under way.
Cameron later postponed a major speech planned for today and warned Britons that they should brace themselves for “the possibility of bad news ahead.”