– IN AMENAS RAID
On Wednesday 01/16/2013, a large Jihadi group, led by Mukhtar Bilmukhtar, known as ‘Al-Mulathamin’ (The Veiled) ,carried out a raid on a BP gas facility in In-Amenas, in the Algerian Sahara, close to the Libyan border, about 1200 km Southeast from the Capital Algier on the Mediterranean, and took over 40 foreign hostages and over 100 local Algerian staff. They said the attack was related to the Mali Campaign and were seeking immediate withdrawal of the French troops from Mali. Soon the region was surrounded by Algerian troops.
Most of the Algerians and many of the foreigners managed to escape but the Jihadist militants took over 40 foreigners and few dozens of Algerians hostages.
One Algerian official said the figures were “exaggerated”. Eight Algerians and seven foreigners, including two British, two Japanese and a French national, were among the dead, an Algerian security source said.
An Algerian security official said the government was forced to intervene because the militants were being stubborn and wanted to flee with the hostages. It is also assumed that Algeria wanted to avoid accumulation of international interference in, what they consider, is their own internal affair. They also wanted to avoid any impact on the price of gas and oil worldwide.
“According to the information we have, the terrorist group which attacked the In Amenas site came from Libya,” Dahou Ould Kablia told Algeria’s Arab-language daily Echorouk.
Algerian sources admitted, on Friday 01/18/2013, about 60 foreign hostages are still unaccounted for. The militants, meanwhile, offered to trade two American hostages for terror figures jailed in the USA, according to a statement received by a Mauritanian news site that often reports news from North African extremists .They offered to trade the two American hostages for two prominent terror figures jailed in the United States: the mastermind of the 02/26/1993 World Trade Center bombing (Omar Abdel Rahman) and a Pakistani scientist convicted of shooting at two US soldiers in Afghanistan (Aafia Siddiqui ).
On Friday, about 50 hours after the raid began, a number of hostages are still held by the gunmen somewhere inside the In Amenas compound by an unknown number of militants who managed to entrench themselves inside the facility. Algerian special forces resumed negotiating Friday with the militants holed up in the refinery, according to the Algerian news service, which cited a security source.
The gunmen said that they are still holding 7 foreign hostages and that their demands of an end to the French military intervention in Mali and the release of prisoners remains unchanged. But the Algerian army insists they are no more hostages, they managed to clear the area, to kill all the perpetrators who did not flee the region earlier and that the crisis is now over.
Earlier on Saturday Mukhtar Bilmukhtar, now naming his group “Signatories in Blood” Qatiba (Battalion), told in a media contact with Sahara Media that they are still open to negotiations regarding a prisoner swap with the Algerian military, after earlier negotiations broke down and led to an Algerian security services assault on the facility.
*( “Signatories in Blood” was the elite unit of GIA during the Algerian Civil War in the 90s’ and, among other audacious attacks,carried out also the Flight-8969 attack , in 12/1994 )
* Prosecutors in the USA have charged , on Friday 07/19/2013, Mukhtar Bilmukhtar with participating in the In Amenas attack. He was charged in an eight-count complaint with conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda, hostage-taking conspiracy, kidnapping of internationally protected persons and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, among other charges.
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11/2012 -AQ BENGHAZI ATTACK
09/2012 -THE SALAFI THREAT
07/2012 -THE LIBYAN CASE
2007 -AL QAEDA IN THE ISLAMIC MAGHREB
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