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Algerian security forces escort a freed Norwegian hostage, Oddvar Birkedal, on Saturday. (Reuters)
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Jan. 20 (Reuters): Algeria warned today that the hostage death toll from a siege at a desert gas plant would rise, after its troops staged a final assault which killed all the remaining gunmen.
Britain said at least three of its citizens had been killed in the crisis, which ended when Algerian special forces stormed the In Amenas plant on Saturday.
France acknowledged the death toll would be high but cautioned against criticising Algeria’s military response, saying it had faced an intolerable situation.
Algeria’s interior ministry had reported on Saturday that 23 hostages and 32 militants were killed during assaults launched by Algerian special forces to end the crisis, with 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerian hostages freed.
However, minister of communication Mohamed Said said this would rise when final numbers were issued in the next few hours. “I am afraid unfortunately to say that the death toll will go up,” Said was quoted as saying by the official APS news agency.
Details are only slowly emerging on what happened during the siege, which marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces are battling militants across the Sahara desert in Mali.
In London, Prime Minister David Cameron said that British citizens were among the dead. “Tragically we now know that three British nationals have been killed and a further three are believed to be dead and also a further British resident is also believed to be dead,” Cameron said in a televised statement.
One Briton was already confirmed killed when the gunmen seized the hostages before dawn on Wednesday at the plant, run by Norway’s Statoil along with Britain’s BP and Algeria’s state oil company.
Said reported that the militants had six different nationalities and the operation to clear the plant of mines laid by the hostage-takers was still under way.
Believed to be among the 32 dead militants was their leader, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a Nigerien close to al Qaida-linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, presumed mastermind of the raid.
One American has also been confirmed dead. Statoil said five of its workers, all Norwegian nationals, were still missing. Japanese and American workers are also unaccounted for.
Some western governments expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities’ plans to storm the complex.
The attack has tested Algeria’s relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamist radicalism in northern Africa to centre stage.
French foreign minister Laurent Fabius defended Algeria’s handling of the crisis, after some governments expressed frustration that they had been kept in the dark.
“What everyone needs to know is that these terrorists who attacked this gas plant are killers who pillage, rape, plunder and kill. The situation was unbearable,” Fabius said.
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