Algeria raises death toll of foreign hostages at gas complex; 3 Americans killed

An attack on a remote natural gas complex in the Sahara Desert was conducted by an international band of Islamist militants, apparently including two Canadians, who wore Algerian army uniforms and had help from the inside, Algeria’s prime minister said Monday, in his government’s first official accounting of the bloody four-day siege.

A total of three Americans died in the violence and seven other U.S. citizens survived, the State Department said Monday.   

The Algerian government captured three of the militants alive, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal told reporters in Algiers, in remarks carried by the state-run news agency. The carefully-planned attack, which he said was two months in the making, targeted foreign workers at the complex and was assisted by a militant from Niger who formerly worked there as a driver. The attackers appeared to know the layout of the sprawling facility by heart, he said. 

Sellal said 38 hostages and 29 militants died during the takeover and subsequent recapture of the complex at Tiguentourine near Algeria’s eastern border with Libya. Only one of the dead hostages was Algerian; the rest were foreigners from at least seven countries, he said. Five other foreign workers are still unaccounted for, Sellal said.

The State Department confirmed last week that one American, Frederick Buttaccio, a Texas resident who worked for Britain’s BP energy giant, had died at the complex. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday that two other Americans — Victor Lynn Lovelady and Gordon Lee Rowan — were also victims of “the terrorist attack in Algeria.” The Associated Press, which first reported the deaths, said the FBI had recovered the two men’s bodies and notified their families. Further details were not immediately available.

“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,” Nuland said. “We will continue to work closely with the government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of the terrorist attack of last week and how we can work together moving forward to combat such threats in the future.”

The Algerian prime minister’s account failed to resolve some of the confusion that has surrounded the hostage crisis since it began, and the final death toll — as well as when and how the hostages died — remained unclear.

The heavily armed militants first attempted to seize hostages from a bus that was driving away from the residential area of the complex, but Algerian security forces repelled them, Sellal said. The attackers appeared to be trying to escape with hostages on Thursday when Algerian military helicopters bombarded a number of vehicles with missiles to prevent them from speeding away, he said.The militants denied that they were trying to flee with hostages and claimed they were transporting the captives to a safer area, a Mauritanian news agency that made contact with the group reported last week.

Other statements reportedly from the militants suggested that they were interested in negotiating. But Sellal defended his country’s swift and harsh response to the situation. He said the group had been making increasingly unreasonable demands and was preparing to blow up the entire gas plant when Algerian security forces stormed the complex on Saturday, bringing the hostage crisis to a decisive, violent end.

Job 18:11						Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.
Job 18:12						His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction [shall be] ready at his side.
Job 18:13						It shall devour the strength of his skin: [even] the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
Job 18:14						His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors.
Joe 3:2		I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and [for] my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
Joe 3:9			¶	Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: