Hostage siege: Mali war turning global
2013-01-17 11:34
Algiers/Bamako - Islamist fighters have opened an
international front in Mali's civil war by taking dozens of Western hostages at
a gas plant in the Algerian desert just as French troops launched an offensive
against rebels in neighbouring Mali.
More than 24 hours after gunmen stormed the natural gas
pumping site and workers' housing before dawn on Wednesday, little was certain
beyond a claim by a group calling itself the "Battalion of Blood"
that it was holding 41 foreign nationals, including Americans, Japanese and
Europeans, at Tigantourine, deep in the Sahara.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed one Briton
had been killed and "a number" of other British citizens were being
held. Algerian media said an Algerian was killed in the assault. Another local
report said a Frenchman had died.
The precise number and nationalities of foreign hostages
could not be confirmed.
The militants said seven Americans were among their hostages
- a figure US officials said they could not confirm. Norwegian oil company
Statoil said nine of its Norwegian staff and three Algerian employees were
captive. Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC
Corporation were held.
"This is a dangerous and rapidly developing
situation," Britain's Hague told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.
"We have sent a rapid deployment team from our Foreign
Office in order to reinforce our embassy and consulate staff there. The safety
of those involved and their co-workers is our absolutely priority and we will
work around the clock to resolve this crisis."
Emergency meeting
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta 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."
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in Vietnam on the first
leg of a Southeast Asian tour, told reporters that "Japan will never
tolerate such an act", according to the Jiji news agency. His government
held an emergency meeting and said it was working with other countries to free
Japanese citizens.
One thing is clear: as a headline-grabbing counterpunch to
this week's French buildup in Mali, it presents French President Francois
Hollande with stark choices and spreads fallout from Mali's war against loosely
allied bands of al-Qaeda-inspired rebels far beyond Africa, challenging
Washington and Europe.
Led by an Algerian veteran of guerrilla wars in Afghanistan,
the group demanded France halt its week-old intervention in Mali, an operation
endorsed by Western and African allies who fear that al-Qaeda, flush with men
and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a
desert haven.
Hollande, who won wide praise for ordering air strikes and
sending troops to the former French colony Mali last week, said little in
response. In office for only eight months, he has warned of a long, hard
struggle and now faces a risk of attacks on more French and other Western
targets in Africa and beyond.
The Algerian government ruled out negotiating and the United
States and other Western governments condemned what they called a terrorist
attack on a facility, now shut down, that produces 10% of Algeria's gas, much
of which is pumped to Europe.
The militants, communicating through established contacts
with media in neighbouring Mauritania, said they had dozens of men armed with mortars
and anti-aircraft missiles at the base, near the town of In Amenas close to the
Libyan border.
They said they had repelled a raid by Algerian forces after
dark on Wednesday. There was no government comment on that. Algerian officials
said earlier about 20 gunmen were involved.
Lives at risk
The militants issued no explicit threat but made clear the
hostages' lives were at risk: "We hold the Algerian government and the
French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our
demands are not met and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against
our people in Mali," read one statement carried by Mauritanian media.
They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting
French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali. They also accused Algeria of
shutting its border to Malian refugees.
The group also said its fighters had rigged explosives
around the site and any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a
"tragic end."
Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the raid
was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the
1980s and recently set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with
other local al Qaeda leaders.
A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The
Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by
some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to
those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.
French media said the militants were also demanding that
Algeria, whose government fought a bloody war against Islamists in the 1990s,
release dozens of prisoners from its jails.
The head of a French catering company said he had
information from a manager who supervises some 150 Algerian employees at the
site. Regis Arnoux of CIS Catering told BFM television the local staff was
being prevented from leaving but was otherwise free to move around inside and
keep on working.
"The Westerners are kept in a separate wing of the
base," Arnoux said. "They are tied up and are being filmed.
Electricity is cut off, and mobile phones have no charge.
"Direct action seems very difficult. ... Algerian
officials have told the French authorities as well as BP that they have the
situation under control and do not need their assistance."
Norway's Statoil operates the gas field in a joint venture
with Britain's BP and the Algerian state company Sonatrach.
"Our total focus is on fixing this situation and
returning our colleagues home," Statoil CEO Helge Lund told a news
conference in Stavanger, western Norway. "Family, friends and colleagues
are waiting for news from them."
Lund will travel later Thursday to Bergen, western Norway,
to a crisis centre set up in a hotel by the company where some relatives of the
hostages are gathering.
Japan's JGC Corp. said in a statement it was cooperating
with the government but would not comment the number of its employees
kidnapped.
International support
French forces, which began air strikes against the Mali
rebels last Friday, were hours from a ground attack on Wednesday, army chief
Edouard Guillaud said.
Mali residents said a column of some 30 French Sagaie
armoured vehicles had set off toward rebel positions from the town of Niono,
300km from the capital, Bamako.
Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French
attacks, although some also fear being caught in the cross-fire.
Hollande has sent hundreds of paratroopers and marines to
fight the Mali rebels who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern
Mali last year and imposed Islamic law, including public amputations and beheading.
The rebels include fighters from al-Qaeda's mainly
Algerian-based North African wing Aqim as well as home-grown Malian groups
Ansar Dine and MUJWA. Islamists have warned Hollande that he has "opened
the gates of hell" for all French citizens.
Panetta said Washington was still studying legal and other
issues before providing more help to France in the war in Mali.
