ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) – Algerian troops ended a siege by Islamist militants at a gas plant in the Sahara desert where 23 hostages died, with a final assault which killed all the remaining hostage-takers.

Believed to be among the 32 dead militants was their leader, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a Nigerien close to al Qaeda-linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, presumed mastermind of the raid.

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria, Jan 19 (Reuters) – The Algerian
army on Saturday carried out a final assault on al Qaeda-linked
gunmen holed up in a desert gas plant, killing 11 of the
Islamists after they took the lives of seven more foreign
hostages, a local source and the state news agency said.

“It is over now, the assault is over, and the military are
inside the plant clearing it of mines,” a local source familiar
with the operation told Reuters.

LONDON/ALGIERS (Reuters) – The In Amenas gas plant felt impregnable to many who worked there – walled in, hundreds of miles from anywhere and with the Algerian army constantly patrolling its desert approaches.

That was a mirage. Libya, an ex-police state turned arms bazaar and now open for jihad, lies just 50 empty miles away. And in any case, the enemy was probably already inside the gates.

LONDON/ALGIERS (Reuters) – The In Amenas gas plant felt impregnable to many who worked there – walled in, hundreds of miles from anywhere and with the Algerian army constantly patrolling its desert approaches.

That was a mirage. Libya, an ex-police state turned arms bazaar and now open for jihad, lies just 50 empty miles away. And in any case, the enemy was probably already inside the gates.

LONDON/ALGIERS, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The In Amenas gas plant
felt impregnable to many who worked there – walled in, hundreds
of miles from anywhere and with the Algerian army constantly
patrolling its desert approaches.

That was a mirage. Libya, an ex-police state turned arms
bazaar and now open for jihad, lies just 50 empty miles away.
And in any case, the enemy was probably already inside the
gates.

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria, Jan 19 (Reuters) – More than 20
foreigners were captive or missing inside a desert gas plant on
Saturday, nearly two days after the Algerian army launched an
assault to free them that saw many hostages killed.

The standoff between the Algerian army and al Qaeda-linked
gunmen – one of the biggest international hostage crises in
decades – entered its fourth day, having thrust Saharan
militancy to the top of the global agenda.

ALGIERS, Jan 18 (Reuters) – A Frenchman spent a day and two
nights in terror, boarded up under his bed, certain he would be
found and killed. An Algerian radio operator saw his French
supervisor’s corpse. A Northern Irish engineer saw four
truckloads of other hostages blasted to pieces in an Algerian
military strike.

The siege of a natural gas plant deep in the remote Sahara
desert of Algeria is not yet over, but the stories of survivors
so far contain tales of shattering trauma that experts say may
never heal.

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) – More than 20 foreigners were still either being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants.

More than a day after the Algerian army launched an assault to seize the remote desert compound, much was still unclear about the number and fate of the victims, leaving countries with citizens in harm’s way struggling to find hard information.

ALGIERS (Reuters) – Algerian forces stormed a desert gas complex to free hundreds of hostages but 30, including several Westerners, were killed in the assault along with at least 11 of their Islamist captors, an Algerian security source told Reuters.

Western leaders whose compatriots were being held did little to disguise their irritation at being kept in the dark by Algeria before the raid – and over its bloody outcome. French, British and Japanese staff were among the dead, the source said.

ALGIERS, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Islamist gunmen who seized
hundreds of gas plant workers in the Sahara told Algerian staff
they would not harm Muslims but would kill Western hostages they
called “Christians and infidels”, a local man who escaped said
on Thursday.

In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday’s dawn raid deep
in the desert, a local man employed at the facility told Reuters
the militants appeared to have good inside knowledge of the
layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.