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Militants Seize Americans and Other Hostages in Algeria Militants Seize Americans and Other Hostages in Algeria
(about 5 hours later)
PARIS — Islamist militants seized a foreign-operated gas field in Algeria early Wednesday and took 20 or more foreign hostages, including Americans, according to an Algerian government official and the country’s state-run news agency, in what appeared to be a retaliation for the French-led military intervention in neighboring Mali. BAMAKO, Mali — The French military assault on Islamist extremists in Mali escalated into a potentially much broader North African conflict on Wednesday when, in retribution, armed attackers in unmarked trucks seized an internationally managed natural gas field in neighboring Algeria and took at least 20 foreign hostages, including Americans.
The Algerian agency said at least two people had been killed in the gas-field seizure, including one British national, and that the hostages included American, British, French, Norwegian and Japanese citizens. Algerian officials said at least two people, including a Briton, were killed in the assault, which began with a predawn ambush on a bus trying to ferry gas-field workers to an airport. Hundreds of Algerian security forces were sent to surround the gas-field compound, creating a tense standoff, and the country’s interior minister said there would be no negotiations.
Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, told reporters in Washington that an unidentified number of American citizens were believed to be among the hostages, and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, traveling in Italy, seemed to raise the possibility that the United States might take military action in response. Algeria’s official news agency said at least 20 fighters had carried out the attack and mass abduction. There were unconfirmed reports late on Wednesday that the security forces had tried to storm the compound and had retreated under gunfire from the hostage takers.
“By all indications this is a terrorist act,” Mr. Panetta said. “It is a very serious matter when Americans are taken hostage along with others.” He also said: “I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation.” Many details of the assault on the gas field in a barren desert site near Libya’s border remained murky, including the precise number of hostages, which could be as high as 41, according to claims by the attackers quoted by regional news agencies. American, French, British, Japanese and Norwegian citizens who worked at the field were known to be among them, officials said.
The exact number of people being held was still far from certain. A top Algerian government official said 20 Islamist militants had attacked the gas field and that security services had now “encircled the base” so that “no one can leave.” Concerning the number of hostages, he said that “the situation is confused for the moment,” and that there might be as many as 30. “We don’t have precise figures for now.” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called the gas-field attack a terrorist act and said the United States was weighing a response. His statement suggested that the Obama administration could be drawn into a military entanglement in North Africa that it had been seeking to keep at arm’s length — even as it has conceded that the region has become a new haven for extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda who threaten Western security and vital interests.
As for the 20 attackers, he said, they came heavily armed, in three unmarked vehicles. “That’s how they slipped through,” he said. “It is a very serious matter when Americans are taken hostage, along with others,” Mr. Panetta told reporters during a visit to Italy. “I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation.”
All told, up to 40 workers could be held hostage, according to oil company officials with interest in the field. A Japanese official confirmed that Japanese nationals were involved, and the Irish Foreign Ministry said one Irish citizen had been kidnapped. Some news agencies said as many as 41 hostages were seized. The gas-field attack, which seemed to take foreign governments and the British and Norwegian companies that help run the facility completely by surprise, appeared to make good on a pledge by the Islamist militants who seized northern Mali last year to sharply expand their struggle against the West in response to France’s military intervention that began last week.
The attack on the gas field appeared to be the first retribution by the Islamists for the French armed intervention in Mali last week, potentially broadening the conflict beyond Mali’s borders and raising the possibility of drawing an increasing number of foreign countries directly into the conflict. Western officials had long warned that a Mali intervention, designed to halt an Islamist militant advance in that country, could incite a backlash far beyond Mali’s borders. The hostage taking potentially broadened the conflict beyond Mali’s borders and raised the possibility of drawing an increasing number of foreign countries into direct involvement, particularly if expatriates working in the vast energy extraction industries of North Africa become targets. It also doubled, at least, the number of non-African hostages that Islamist militants in northern and western Africa have been using as bargaining chips to finance themselves in recent years through ransoms that have totaled millions of dollars.
Algeria, which has its own long history of fighting Islamic militancy, suggested it would show no tolerance for the gas-field attackers. But there was no indication that the gas-field attackers wanted money, and no other demands or ultimatums were issued. Instead, in a statement sent to ANI, a Mauritanian news agency, they demanded the “immediate halt of the aggression against our own in Mali.”
“The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate,” Algeria’s interior minister, Daho Ould Kablia, was quoted as saying by the official news agency. The statement, made by a group called Al Mulathameen, which has links to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African affiliate of Al Qaeda, claimed it was holding more than 40 “crusaders” — apparently a reference to non-Muslims — “including seven Americans, two French, two British as well as other citizens of various European nationalities.”
The attack occurred at the fourth largest gas development in Algeria, In Amenas, and at its gas compression plant, which is operated by BP, the Norwegian company Statoil and the Algerian national oil company Sonatrach. The gas-field attack coincided with an escalation of the fight inside Mali, according to Western and Malian officials, as French ground troops, joined by soldiers of the Malian Army, engaged in combat with Islamist fighters. The officials said the French-Malian units had begun to beat back the Islamist militant advance southward from northern Mali, a move that had provoked the intervention ordered by President François Hollande of France.
Bard Glad Pedersen, a Statoil spokesman, said that of 17 Statoil employees working in the field, only four were able to safely escape to a nearby Algerian military camp. “There is a hostage situation,” he said. “We do not provide further information how we are dealing with the situation. Our main priority is the safety of our colleagues.” The attackers seemed particularly incensed that Algeria’s government had permitted the French to use Algerian airspace to fly warplanes and military equipment into Mali, according to their statement, which may explain why they chose Algeria for retaliation. Some Algerian military experts said the Algerian public also was unhappy about the government’s decision.
The Sahara Media Agency of Mauritania, quoting what it described as a spokesman for the militants, said they were holding five hostages in a production facility on the site and 36 others in a housing area, and that there were as many as 400 Algerian soldiers surrounding the operation. But that information could not be confirmed, and the agency’s report on the specifics of where the hostages were held raised questions about its credibility. “The setting in motion of a military machine in north Mali was going to have definite repercussions in Algeria,” said Mohamed Chafik Mesbah, a former Algerian Army officer and political scientist reached by telephone in Algiers. “This is only the beginning,” he said. “There are going to be much worse consequences. There will be more attacks.”
Fighters with links to Al Qaeda’s African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to both Mauritanian and Algerian news agencies. They quoted militants claiming that the kidnappings were a response to the Algerian government’s decision to allow France to use its airspace to conduct strikes against Islamists in Mali. A senior Algerian official said the militants, who claimed to have come from Mali, had breached the gas-field compound, outside the town of In Amenas, through the use of three unmarked trucks that had escaped detection. An oil company official who had knowledge of the attack said the militants had shut down production at the site, which indicated they had carefully planned it. But how and why they chose In Amenas, which is more than 700 miles from the Malian border and is much closer to Libya, was among the unknowns.
Islamist groups and bandits have long operated in the deserts of western Africa, and a collection of Islamists have occupied the vast expanse of northern Mali since last year. In retaliation for the French-led effort to drive them out, those groups, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, have pledged to strike against France’s interests on the continent and abroad, as well as those of nations backing the French operations. In France, security has been reinforced at airports, train stations and other public spaces. The facility is the fourth-largest gas development in Algeria, a major oil producer and OPEC member. The In Amenas gas compression plant is operated by BP of Britain, the Norwegian company Statoil and the Algerian national oil company Sonatrach.
The militant groups are financed in large part through ransoms paid for the freeing of Western hostages, and regular kidnappings have occurred in the West African desert in recent years. Seven French nationals are presently being held there. Bard Glad Pedersen, a Statoil spokesman, said that of 17 Statoil employees who had been working in the field, four escaped to a nearby Algerian military camp, but he would not say how. “We do not provide further information how we are dealing with the situation,” he said. “Our main priority is the safety of our colleagues.”
The attack on Wednesday was carried out by a “heavily armed” group of “terrorists” traveling aboard three vehicles, the Algeria Interior Ministry statement said, and targeted a bus transporting foreign workers to a nearby airport at 5 a.m. The Sahara Media Agency of Mauritania, quoting what it described as a spokesman for the militants, said that they were holding five hostages in a production facility on the site and 36 others in a housing area, and that there were as many as 400 Algerian soldiers surrounding the operation. But that information could not be confirmed.
Algeria, which shares a desert border of several hundred miles with Mali, has resisted the possibility of organizing an armed intervention into the Malian north, fearing that fighting could spill into Algeria or drive militants into the country. Indeed, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the militant groups now holding northern Mali, began as an insurgent group fighting the Algerian government in the 1990s. But Algeria has authorized French jets flying missions in Mali to cross Algerian airspace. Islamist groups and bandits have long operated in the deserts of western and northern Africa, and a collection of Islamists have occupied the vast expanse of northern Mali since a government crisis in that country last March. Those groups, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had pledged to strike against France’s interests on the continent and abroad, as well as those of nations backing the French operations. In France, security has been reinforced at airports, train stations and other public spaces.
Oil and gas are central to the Algerian economy, accounting for more than a third of the country’s gross domestic product, over 95 percent of its export earnings and 60 percent of government financial receipts. Large pipelines connect the In Amenas fields with the Skikda liquefied natural gas export terminal, one of two export port facilities that supply gas to France, Spain, Turkey, Italy and Britain. Pipelines from the field also connect with Italy and Spain. In recent years, Algeria was the third largest natural gas supplier to Europe after Russia and Norway, according to the United States Energy Department. The militant groups are financed in large part through ransoms paid for the freeing of Western hostages, and regular kidnappings have occurred in the West African desert in recent years. At least seven French citizens are presently being held there, officials say.
Algeria is also a major oil exporter to Europe and Asia, where its high quality light sweet crude fits perfectly with local refineries. The United States is traditionally a major importer of Algerian crude, although over the last few years much of those imports have been replaced by new oil production in American shale oil fields in North Dakota and Texas. Oil and gas are central to the Algerian economy, accounting for more than a third of the country’s gross domestic product, over 95 percent of its export earnings and 60 percent of government financial receipts. Algeria is an important gas supplier to France, Spain, Turkey, Italy and Britain.
Algeria has traditionally been known as a secure place for foreign companies to work and invest. Sonatrach and the security forces put tight security around oil and gas facilities during the struggle with Islamic militants in the 1990s, a period when energy infrastructure was never a major insurgent target. Algeria has also historically been known as a relatively secure place for foreign companies to work and invest. Sonatrach and the security forces had put tight security around oil and gas facilities during the struggle with Islamic militants in the 1990s, a period when energy infrastructure was never a major insurgent target.

Scott Sayare reported from Paris, and Adam Nossiter from Bamako, Mali. Reporting was contributed by Clifford Krauss from Houston, Elisabeth Bumiller from Rome and Rick Gladstone from New York.

Energy experts expressed concern that the Algerian raid could signal a new strategy by Islamic militants to attack the West by focusing on Western-operated oil and gas facilities in the region.
“This is a new development,” said Helima Croft, a Barclays Capital senior geopolitical strategist. She said if groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb “decide as a change in tactic they go after Western energy interests, then you have to look at a threat in all these countries, including Libya, Nigeria and Morocco.”
She added: “This type of attack had to have advanced planning. It’s not an easy target of opportunity.”

Adam Nossiter reported from Bamako, and Scott Sayare from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Clifford Krauss from Houston, Rick Gladstone from New York, Elisabeth Bumiller from Rome and Alan Cowell and Steven Erlanger from Paris.