37 foreigners die at Algeria gas plant, 7 missing -Prime Minister

Algerian special forces stormed the plant on Saturday to end the four-day siege, moving in to thwart what government officials said was a plot by the Islamic extremists to blow up the complex and kill all their captives with mines sown throughout the site.            

In a statement, the Masked Brigade, the group that claimed to have masterminded the takeover, warned of more such attacks against any country backing France's military intervention in neighboring Mali, where the French are trying to stop an advance by Islamic extremists.         

"We stress to our Muslim brothers the necessity to stay away from all the Western companies and complexes for their own safety, and especially the French ones," the statement said.           


Dead and missing   

At least 81 people have been reported dead, including 32 Islamist militants, after a bloody, four-day hostage situation at Algeria's remote Ain Amenas natural gas plant. Nearly two dozen foreign workers remained unaccounted for late Sunday.     

Here's the latest information from Algeria on the dead and missing:        

THE MISSING HOSTAGES       

JAPAN: 10 Japanese working at the plant are unaccounted for, according to their employer JGC Corp.      

NORWAY: Five Norwegian employees of Statoil are still missing, the energy company said Sunday.       

BRITAIN: Three other Britons still missing and feared dead, the U.K. government said Sunday. Another British resident also feared dead.       

THE PHILIPPINES: Four Filipinos are still missing,  a government spokesman said in Manila.       

MALAYSIA: Two Malaysians are missing, the government says.
   

Authorities said the bloody takeover was carried out Wednesday by 32 men from six countries, under the command from afar of the one-eyed Algerian bandit Moktar Belmoktar, founder of the Masked Brigade, based in Mali. The attacking force called itself "Those Who Sign in Blood."             

The Masked Brigade said Sunday the attack was payback against Algeria for allowing over-flights of French aircraft headed to Mali and for closing its long border with Mali. In an earlier communication, the Brigade claimed to have carried out the attack in the name of al-Qaida.           

Armed with heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, missiles and grenades, the militants singled out foreign workers at the plant, killing some of them on the spot and attaching explosive belts to others.            

Algeria's tough and uncompromising response to the crisis was typical of its take-no-prisoners approach in confronting terrorists, favoring military action over negotiation. Algerian military forces, backed by attack helicopters, launched two assaults on the plant, the first one on Thursday.             

An audio recording of Algerian security forces speaking with the head of the kidnappers, Abdel Rahman al-Nigiri, on the second day of the drama indicated the hostage-takers were trying to organize a prisoner swap. "You see our demands are so easy, so easy if you want to negotiate with us," al-Nigiri said in the recording broadcast by Algerian television. "We want the prisoners you have, the comrades who were arrested and imprisoned 15 years ago. We want 100 of them."             

In another phone call, al-Nigiri said that half the militants had been killed by the Algerian army on Thursday and that he was ready to blow up the remaining hostages if security forces attacked again. An organization that monitors videos from radicals posted one showing al-Nigiri with what appeared to be an explosive belt around his waist.           

The Algerians' use of forced raised an international outcry from some countries worried about their citizens.           

Positions

Britain will contribute intelligence and counter-terrorism assets to help dismantle the militant network that carried out the hostage attack at an Algerian gas complex last week, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday.

"We will contribute British intelligence and counter-terrorism assets to an international effort to find and dismantle the network that planned and ordered the brutal assault at In Amenas," he told parliament, promising a "strong security response".  

He also said northern Africa was becoming a "magnet for jihadists".

"Britain will consider giving more help to the French military operation against Islamist militants in Mali," he added.  

"We'll be looking at other transport and surveillance assets that we can let the French use to help them in what they are doing," Cameron told parliament, adding that the government's Security Council would discuss the issue on Tuesday.

Britain has already lent France the use of two C-17 military transport planes.

For his part, France's armed forces spokesman Thierry Burkhard said that there are now 1,000 soldiers from West Africa and Chad on the ground in Mali as part of an intervention force that should eventually number several thousand.

Burkhard told reporters 830 soldiers from countries including Togo, Benin, Niger and Nigeria, plus 170 from Chad, were backing France's force of 2,150 soldiers on the ground, helping the Malian army push back Islamist rebel fighters.

Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Youcef Yousfi said that an attack by Islamist fighters at Algeria's in Amenas gas complex will not prompt foreign energy firms to abandon investment in the country.

"I don't think foreign workers are leaving Algeria definitively. They have left just to reassure their families," Yousfi told reporters in parliament.  

"I don't think foreign companies will leave definitively." He said the fighters had tried to blow up the gas plant.

Earlier on Sunday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on French television: "The terrorists ... they're the ones to blame."   

In turn, David Plouffe, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said that al-Qaida and al-Qaida-affiliated groups remain a threat in North Africa and other parts of the world, and that the U.S. is determined to help other countries destroy those networks.             

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Plouffe said the tragedy in Algeria shows once again "that all across the globe countries are threatened by terrorists who will use civilians to try and advance their twisted and sick agenda."


AP/REUTERS