Extreme weather

Apart from a super-cyclone headed for East India, that is

Major Typhoon Nari hits the Philippines

Typhoon Nari hit the main Philippine island of Luzon Friday night local time as a Category 3 typhoon with 115 mph winds. The core of the storm passed about 80 miles north of the capital of Manila, and the storm dumped torrential rains in excess of ten inches to the northeast of Manilla, according to satellite estimates. Passage over Luzon weakened Nari, and the typhoon is now emerging into the South China Sea between the Philippines and Vietnam as a Category 2 storm with 105 mph winds. Nari has about two days over water to re-intensify before making a second landfall in Vietnam around 18 UTC on Monday. The 5 pm EDT Friday Joint Typhoon Warning Center advisory predicts that Nari will re-intensify to 110 mph winds, just below Category 3 strength.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2551

Flash floods kill seven in Algeria

Algiers (AFP) - Flash floods killed seven people in Algeria on Wednesday, five of them in a normally arid region bordering the Sahara, emergency services said.

Two rivers burst their banks in Djelfa, 330 kilometres (205 miles), south of Algiers, on the escarpment where the High Plateaus of the centre give way to the deserts of the south, the APS news agency reported.

Five bodies were recovered after two vehicles were swept away, it quoted emergency services as saying.

The other two deaths came in an area of Msila province 230 kilometres (145 miles) southeast of the capital, where the Soubella river burst its banks, APS said.

Several dozen families were forced to flee homes along the river and take refuge in a local school.

http://news.yahoo.com/flash-floods-kill-seven-algeria-194939639.html

Ocean City, MD Flooding

Laos Flooding 9,Oct,2013

Clinton testifies

Clinton testifies: ‘Algerian terrorists got weapons from Libya’

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Islamists who attacked a gas plant in Algeria got their weapons in Libya. She also blamed Northern Africa's security vacuum on the Arab Spring while testifying on the September 2012 attack in Benghazi.

RT,

23 January, 2013

"There is no doubt that the Algerian terrorists had weapons from Libya. There is no doubt that the Malian remnants of AQIM [Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb] have weapons from Libya," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a hearing on the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

Clinton said she was unable to weigh in on reports that some of the terrorists involved in the Algerian hostage crisis had played a part in the Benghazi attack.

Islamist militants seized the gas field near In Amenas, Algeria last Wednesday. 

Hundreds of hostages, including dozens of foreigners from various countries, were held captive for four days until Algerian special forces stormed the plant on Saturday.

Algeria's prime minister said 37 hostages and 29 militants were killed in the operation. Three US citizens were reportedly killed in the attack.

The Islamist 'Mulathameen Brigade' claimed responsibility for the hostage crisis, warning it would carry out similar attacks until Western powers end what it called an attack on Muslims in Mali.

Clinton also stressed how the 2010-2011 Arab Spring fostered the conditions in which the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, took place. She further drew a line between Libya and the ongoing conflict in Mali, which spurred an intervention by French forces earlier this month.

"Benghazi didn't happen in a vacuum," Clinton said. "The Arab revolutions have scrambled power dynamics and shattered security forces across the region. And instability in Mali has created an expanding safe haven for terrorists who look to extend their influence and plot further attacks of the kind we saw just last week in Algeria."

She remained adamant that US efforts to aid French forces in defeating Islamists in Mali should continue unabated, though Washington has so far limited aid to logistical support.

Russia, who backed a UN Security Council resolution on intervention in Mali but was staunchly opposed to NATO’s 2011 toppling of the Gaddafi regime, blamed the US and its allies for the current crisis in the West African state.

"Those whom the French and Africans are fighting now in Mali are the (same) people who overthrew the Gaddafi regime, those that our Western partners armed so that they would overthrow the Gaddafi regime," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference on Wednesday.

Saying that terrorist attacks had almost become a daily occurrence in the region, Lavrov reiterated:

“The situation in Mali seems the consequence of events in Libya. The seizure of hostages in Algeria was a wake-up call."

Benghazi backlash

Clinton offered her first detailed account of the days following the Benghazi during the senate hearing.

"I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews. I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters," an emotionally shaken Clinton said.

Clinton, who said the State Department implemented the 29 recommendations of an independent review board which found lower level officials responsible for the attack, said "I take responsibility."

The Accountability Review Board inquiry concluded that the State Department was woefully unprepared to deal with the September 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

Citing “leadership and management” failures, poor coordination and an unclear chain of command in Washington, the probe did not personally blame Clinton.

Controversy surrounding the Benghazi attack had previously derailed UN ambassador Susan Rice’s chances of succeeding Clinton as secretary of state.

Rice was forced to withdrawal her name for the position after Republicans assailed her for repeating initial Obama administration talking points that characterized the attack as a spontaneous demonstration inspired by an anti-Islamic film produced in the US, rather than a coordinated assault.

Clinton, who fiercely sparred with Republican Senator Ron Johnson over the administration’s initial portrayal of the attack, said: “I was not focused on talking points” and “I wasn’t involved in the talking points process.”

Clinton rebuffed Johnson for insinuating the White House had attempted to mislead the American people over the motives of the attack, saying “nothing could be further from the truth.”

“What difference at this point does it make,” she continued.

Clinton framed the attack within a long history of violence and regional instability which affected her department, including the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis the bombing of American embassies in East Africa in 1998, and other incidents.

“Of course, the list of attacks foiled, crises averted, and lives saved, is even longer,” she said. “We should never forget that our security professionals get it right 99 percent of the time, against difficult odds all over the world.”

Backgrounder to the conflict in Mali

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: Who’s Who? Who is Behind the Terrorists?

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research,

21 January. 2013

Who is behind the terrorist group which attacked the BP -Statoil-Sonatrach In Amenas Gas Field Complex located on the Libyan border in South Eastern Algeria?  (see map below)

The operation was coordinated by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, leader of the Al Qaeda affiliated Islamist al-Mulathameen (Masked) Brigade, or “Those who Sign with Blood.”  

Belmokhtar’s  organization has been involved in the drug trade, smuggling as well kidnapping operations of foreigners in North Africa.  While his whereabouts are known, French intelligence has dubbed Belmokhtar “the uncatchable”.

Belmokhtar took responsibility on behalf of Al Qaeda for the kidnapping of 41 Western hostages including 7 Americans at the BP In Amenas Gas Field Complex.

Belmokhtar, however, was not directly involved in the actual attack. The field commander of the operation was Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a veteran jihadist fighter from Niger, who joined Algeria’s Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in 2005. (Albawaba,  January 17, 2013) 

The In Amenas kidnapping operation was carried out five days after the conduct of air strikes by France directed against Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) militants in northern Mali.

French special forces and Malian troops regained control of Diabaly and Konna, two small towns North of Mopti.  The town of Diabaly had apparently been taken over a few days earlier by fighters led by one of the leading AQIM commanders Abdelhamid Abou Zeid.

While the terrorist attack and kidnapping directed against the In Amenas Gas plant was described as an act of revenge, it was not in any way improvised, Confirmed by analysts, the operation  had in all likelihood been planned well in advance:

“European and U.S. officials say the raid was almost certainly too elaborate to have been planned in so short a time, although the French campaign could have been one trigger for fighters to launch an assault they had already prepared.”

According to recent reports (January 20, 2012) there are some 80 casualties, including hostages and jihadist fighters. There were several hundred workers at the gas plant, most of whom were Algerian. “Of those rescued, only 107 out of 792 workers were foreign”, according to the Algerian Ministry of Interior.  

The British and French governments laid the blame on the jihadists. In the words of Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron:

“Of course people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched this vicious and cowardly attack. (Reuters, January 20, 2013).

News reports confirm, however, that a large number of the deaths of both the hostages and the Islamic fighters was the result of the bombing raids led by Algerian forces.

Negotiations with the captors, which could have saved lives, had not been seriously contemplated by either the Algerian or Western governments. The militants had demanded an end to France’s attacks in northern Mali in return for the safety of the hostages. Al Qaeda leader Belmokhtar had stated:

“We are ready to negotiate with the West and the Algerian government provided they stop their bombing of Mali’s Muslims” (Reuters, January 20, 2013)

Within the ranks of the jihadists were mercenaries from a number of Muslim countries including Libya (yet to be confirmed) as well as fighters from Western countries.

  Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Who’s Who?  

There are a number of affiliated groups which are actively involved in northern Mali: 

• Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) led by Abdelmalek Droukdel, “the emir of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb”, 
• Ansar Ed-Dine led by Iyad Ag Ghaly, 
• the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA). 

The Armed Islamic Group, or Groupe islamique armé (GIA) which was prominent in the 1990s is largely defunct. Its members have joined AQIM.

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad  (MNLA) is a Tuareg secular nationalist and independence movement.

Historical Background

In September 2006, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) joined forces with Al Qaeda. The GSPC was founded by Hassan Hattab a former GIA commander.

In January 2007,  the group officially changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Also in early 2007, the newly formed AQIM established a close relationship with the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). 

The commanders of the GSPC had been inspired by the religious teaching of Salafism in Saudi Arabia, which historically played an important role in the training of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

The history of AQIM jihadist commanders is of significance in addressing the broader issue:

• Who is behind the various Al Qaeda affiliated factions? 

Who is supporting the terrorists? 

What political and economic interests are being served? 

The Washington based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) traces the origins of AQIM back to the Soviet-Afghan war:

Most of AQIM’s major leaders are believed to have trained in Afghanistan during the 1979-1989 war against the Soviets as part of a group of North African volunteers known as “Afghan Arabs” that returned to the region and radicalized Islamist movements in the years that followed. The group is divided into “katibas” or brigades, which are clustered into different and often independent cells.

The group’s top leader, or emir, since 2004 has been  Abdelmalek Droukdel, also known as Abou Mossab Abdelwadoud, a trained engineer and explosives expert who has fought in Afghanistan and has roots with the GIA in Algeria. It is under Droukdel’s leadership that AQIM declared France as its main target. One of the “most violent and radical” AQIM leaders is Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, according to counterterrorism experts. Abou Zied is linked to several kidnappings and executions of Europeans in the region. (Council on Foreign Relations, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, cfr.org, undated)

What the CFR report fails to mention is that the Islamic jihad in Afghanistan was a CIA initiative, initially launched in 1979 during the Carter administration. It was actively supported by president Ronald Reagan throughout the 1980s.

In 1979 the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA was launched in Afghanistan.  Wahabi missionaries from Saudi Arabia set up the Coranic schools (madrassahs) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Islamic textbooks used in the madrassahs were printed and published in Nebraska. Covert funding was channeled to the Mujahideen with the support of the CIA:

“With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI, who wanted to turn the Afghan Jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually, more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.” (Ahmed Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism”, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999).

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), using Pakistan’s military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA-sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:

In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,…[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies ― a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987… as well as a “ceaseless stream” of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan’s ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.” (Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992)

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, mastermind behind the terrorist attack by the Islamist al-Mulathameen (Masked) Brigade on the In Amenas Gas complex is one of the founding members of AQIM.

He was trained and recruited by the CIA in Afghanistan. Belmokhtar  was a North African volunteers, an  “Afghan Arab” enlisted at age 19 as a Mujahideen to fight within the ranks of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, at a time when the CIA and its Pakistani affiliate –the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)– were actively supporting the jihadists in both recruitment and training. Mokhtar Belmokhtar fought in the Afghan “civil war”.  He returned to Algeria in 1993 and joined the GSPC.  Belmokhtar’s history and involvement in Afghanistan suggests that he was a US sponsored “intelligence asset”. 

The Role of America’s Allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) from the outset in 2007 had established a close relationship to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), whose leaders had also been trained and recruited in Afghanistan bu the CIA. The LIFG is supported covertly by the CIA and Britain’s MI6.

The LIFG  was directly supported by NATO during the 2011 war on Libya, “providing weapons, training, special forces and even aircraft to support them in the overthrow of Libya’s government.” (Tony Cartalucci, The Geopolitical Reordering of Africa: US Covert Support to Al Qaeda in Northern Mali, France “Comes to the Rescue”, Global Research, January 2013)

. British SAS Special Forces had been brought into Libya prior to onset of the insurrection, acting as mlitary advisers to the LIFG.

More recently, reports confirm that AQIM has received weapons from the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). LIFG mercenaries have integrated AQIM brigades. According to commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who coordinated the In Amenas kidnapping operation:

“We have been one of the main beneficiaries of the revolutions in the Arab world. As for our benefiting from the (Libyan) weapons, this is a natural thing in these kinds of circumstances.” http://www.hanford.gov/c.cfm/oci/ci_terrorist.cfm?dossier=174

The BP In Amenas plant is located directly on the Libyan border. One suspects that there was a contingent of Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) combatants involved in the operation.

AQIM also has ties to the Al Nusra Front in Syria which is supported covertly by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is indelibly tied into a Western intelligence agenda. It is described  as ” one of the region’s wealthiest, best-armed militant groups”, financed covertly by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

France’s  Canard enchaîné revealed (June 2012) that Qatar (a staunch ally of the United States) has been funding various terrorist entities in Mali including the Salafist Ansar Ed-Dine:

Both the Tuareg rebels of the MNLA (independence and laity), Ansar Ed Dine, AQIM (Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb) and Mujao (Jihad in West Africa) were assisted with dollars from Qatar, according to one report  (The Examiner)

The satirical French paper Canard Enchaîné reported [June 2012] that Qatar has allegedly been funding armed groups in northern Mali made their way into Algerian and west African outlets.

Suspicions that Ansar Ed-Dine, the main pro-shari’ah armed group in the region, has been receiving funding from Qatar has circulated in Mali for several months.

Reports (as yet unconfirmed) that a ‘Qatari’ aircraft landed at Gao, full of weapons, money and drugs, for example, emerged near the beginning of the conflict.

The original report cites a French military intelligence report as indicating that Qatar has provided financial support to all three of the main armed groups in northern Mali: Iyad Ag Ghali’s Ansar Ed-Dine, al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA).

The amount of funding given to each of the groups is not mentioned but it mentions repeated reports from the French DGSE to the Defense Ministry have mentioned Qatar’s support for ‘terrorism’ in northern Mali. (emphasis added)

The role of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as an intelligence asset must be carefully assessed. The Islamic insurgency creates conditions which favor the political destabilization of Mali as a nation state. What geopolitical interests have been served?

 Concluding Remarks: “The American Sudan”

In a bitter irony, the kidnapping operation in Southern Algeria and the tragedy resulting from the Algerian led military “rescue” operation provide a humanitarian justification for Western military intervention led by US AFRICOM.  The latter not only pertains to Mali and Algeria. It could also include the broader region extending  across the sub-Saharan Sahelian belt, from Mauritania to the Western border of Sudan.

This process of escalation is part of a US military and strategic “road-map”, a subsequent stage in the militarization of the African continent, “a followup” to the US-NATO 2011 war on Libya.

It is a project of neo-colonial conquest by the US over a vast area.

While France is the former colonial power, intervening on behalf of Washington, the end-game is to eventually exclude France from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. This displacement of France as a colonial power has been ongoing since the war of Indochina in the 1950s.

While the US is prepared in the short-run to share the spoils of war with France, Washington’s ultimate objective is to “redraw the map of the African continent”, and eventually, to transform francophone Africa into an American sphere of influence. The latter would extend across the continent from Mauritania on the Atlantic to the Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.

A similar process of excluding France from francophone Africa has been ongoing since the 1990s in Rwanda, Burundi and the Republic of the Congo.

In turn, French as an official language in francophone Africa is being encroached upon. Today in Rwanda, English is an official language, alongside Kinyarwanda  and French. Starting with the RPF government in 1994, secondary education was offered in either French or English. Since 2009 it is offered solely in English. The University since 1994, no longer operates in French. (The president of Rwanda Paul Kagame does not read or speak French). In 2009, Rwanda joined the Commonwealth.

What is at stake is a vast territory which during the colonial period included French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa  (See map  left as well as maps below)

Mali during the French period was referred to as Le Soudan français (the French Sudan).

Ironically, this process of weakening and eventually excluding France from francophone Africa has been carried out with the tacit endorsement of  both (former) president Nicolas Sarkozy and president François Hollande, both of whom are serving US geopolitical interests to the detriment of the French Republic.

The militarization of the African continent is part of the mandate of US Africom.

The longer term goal is to exert geopolitical as well military control over a vast area, which historically has been within France’s sphere of influence.  This area is an rich in oil, natural gas, gold, uranium and strategic minerals. (See R. Teichman, The War on Mali. What you Should Know: An Eldorado of Uranium, Gold, Petroleum, Strategic Minerals …, Global Research, January 15, 2013)

The colonial re-division of Africa decided at the 1884-85 at the Berlin Conference (right). For the maps of French colonial Africa, see below.

Cameron on North Africa

Sounds suspiciously like Cheney's "war that won't end in our lifetime."

-- RF

Cameron: North Africa terrorist threat 'could last decades'

David Cameron has warned the Algerian hostage crisis could be the start of a decades-long battle against Islamist terrorism in north Africa.

BBC,

20 January, 2013

Three Britons are confirmed dead and three more are believed to have died after the Algerian army stormed the site at In Amenas on Saturday. Another UK resident is also thought to be dead.

One victim has been named as 46-year-old Paul Thomas Morgan.

Five hostage-takers were reported captured at the plant on Sunday.

The UK prime minister said the incident was a "stark reminder" of the terrorist threat in that part of the world and added: "This is a global threat and it will require a global response.

"It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months."

'Iron resolve'

"It requires a response that is patient and painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve and that is what we will deliver over these coming years," added Mr Cameron.

The prime minister, who will make a statement about the events in Algeria in the Commons on Monday, said there were clear similarities with the terrorist threat from Afghanistan and Pakistan, although it was on a different scale.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed the attack was a response to France's intervention in neighbouring Mali

"What we face is an extremist, Islamist, al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group. Just as we had to deal with that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan so the world needs to come together to deal with this threat in north Africa," he said.

"It is linked to al-Qaeda, it wants to destroy our way of life, it believes in killing as many people as it can. We need to work with others to defeat the terrorists and to close down the ungoverned spaces where they thrive with all the means that we have."

A raid by Algerian troops on Saturday ended a four-day siege in which at least 48 hostages are thought to have died.

There are reports that 25 bodies found at the complex on Sunday are all those of captives.

This comes a day after Algerian officials reported the deaths of 23 hostages, with more said to be unaccounted for, and 32 militants.

Algerian officials said the hostage-takers - from six different nationalities - belonged to a new Islamist group formed by a veteran Algerian militant and kidnapper, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who recently broke from al-Qaeda.

Mauritanian website Sahara Media says he has claimed responsibility for the hostage-taking in a video message.

He said the operation had been led by 40 migrants from "several Islamic countries, even from the Western countries".

The video is said to have showed Belmokhtar claiming he was prepared to negotiate with Western and Algerian leaders if French military offensives against Islamists in neighbouring Mali were stopped.

A BP spokesman would not comment on reports in the Algerian media that Belmokhtar had infiltrated his men as drivers, cooks and guards working on short-term contracts for BP at the complex.

The company released a statement confirming that 18 of its employees were at In Amenas at the time of the attack and 14 of them were safe, although two had sustained injuries which were not life-threatening.

"BP remains gravely concerned about four of its employees who are missing. There is no further confirmed information regarding their status at this time," the firm added.

'Free to go'

In a statement from Mr Morgan's mother, Marianne, 65, and his 36-year-old partner, Emma Steele, he was described as "a true gentleman, a family man".

The first British victim to be named was Paul Thomas Morgan, aged 46

"He very much loved his partner Emma, his mum, brothers and sister, of who he was very proud," the statement said. "He loved life and lived it to the full. He was a professional man proud to do the job he did and died doing the job he loved.

"We are so proud of him and so proud of what he achieved in his life. We are devastated by Paul's death and he will be truly missed."

Twenty-two British survivors have been flown back to the UK and reunited with their families.

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said eight Scottish survivors were now back in the UK, but added: "We know that two Scots, or people with immediate Scottish family connections, are believed to have been killed."

One hostage - Alan Wright, 37, from Aberdeenshire - described hiding in an office when the Islamists attacked, before cutting through a fence and escaping.

The crisis began on Wednesday when militants attacked two buses carrying foreign workers and Algerians to the remote site in south-eastern Algeria. A Briton and an Algerian reportedly died at the scene.

The militants then took Algerians and foreign workers hostage at the complex, which was quickly surrounded by the Algerian army.

The Algerian armed forces staged an initial attack on Thursday as militants tried to move some of their captives from the facility.

Mr Cameron paid his condolences to the bereaved families, who had undergone "an absolutely dreadful ordeal".

He said questions would be asked about the Algerian response to the crisis, but added: "The responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched these vicious and cowardly attacks."

Allen McCloud, from Plymouth, was one of 22 Britons who survived the crisis

State news agency APS said 685 Algerian workers and 107 out of 132 foreigners working at the plant had been freed.

The nationalities of some of the hostages killed are still not known, but as well as the Britons, US, Norwegian, and Japanese nationals are also missing.

A Colombian citizen resident in the UK is believed to be among the dead.

'Stressful'

Two of the survivors have been named as Lou Fear, 56, from Louth in Lincolnshire and

Other freed hostages have been named as Iain Strachan, 38, from Howwood in Renfrewshire; Darren Matthews, from Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Teesside; Mark Grant, 29, from Grangemouth, near Falkirk; Alan Wright, 37, from Portsoy in Aberdeenshire; Peter Hunter, 53, from County Durham; David Murray, 47, from Kirkby in Merseyside; Huw Edwards, 55, from Macclesfield in Cheshire; and Stephen McFaul, 36, from Belfast.

The In Amenas gas field is situated at Tigantourine, about 40km (25 miles) south-west of the town of In Amenas and 1,300km (800 miles) south-east of Algiers.

The plant is jointly run by BP, Norway's Statoil and Algeria's state-owned oil company.

Algeria's oil minister Youcef Youcefi said the plant would return to production within the next two days.

Algerian hostage crisis

50 more dead found at Algerian gas plant as Al-Qaeda claims responsibility

A still image broadcast by Algeria's Ennahar TV on January 19, 2013.(AFP Photo / Ennahar TV)

RT,

20 January, 2013

A further 50 bodies have been found at the Algerian gas plant, in addition to the 23 hostages and 32 militants already confirmed dead. Meanwhile, an Al-Qaeda-linked commander has claimed responsibly for the attack.

Officials have not confirmed how many of the newly discovered 50 bodies are those of hostages. Local media reports the figure as 25, which would take the total number of hostage dead to 48. Meanwhile, five terrorists were found alive this morning, AFP reported quoting private Ennahar TV channel.

So far, Algerian authorities have not announced the nationalities of any of the 23 dead that have been officially confirmed as hostages. British, US, Norwegian and Japanese nationals have been reported missing.

In total, Special Forces freed "685 Algerian workers and 107 foreigners," the Interior Ministry said.

The news from the gruesome clear-up operation comes just hours after an Al-Qaeda linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibly for the deadly assault on the gas plant.

In his video statement Belmokhtar expressed readiness to negotiate with both Algerian and Western states, provided they cease their bombing campaign in northern Mali.

Though the hostage crisis in eastern Algeria has ended, the scene at the plant remains chaotic as rescuers struggle to find those reported missing. For now, the fates of nearly 30 people from the UK, the US, Norway Japan and Malaysia remain unclear.

The UK Prime Minister confirmed Sunday that three British hostages had been killed, and that another three British nationals are also "believed dead."

The UK Foreign Office has confirmed that some UK residents returned home overnight.

Shortly after Cameron’s statement, Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed that 22 British citizens who survived that hostage drama had flown home on charter flights organized by the government or by oil company BP.

A Japanese engineering firm said Sunday that of the 17 Japanese nationals working at the plant, 10 are still missing and seven have been confirmed as safe.

"As such, we are taking the government announcement that there were multiple Japanese killed extremely seriously,"a JGC Corp. spokesperson said. The engineering firm was involved in gas production in the region. 

Meanwhile hospital officials claimed on Sunday that twelve of the bodies that have been stored at the morgue in Algeria’s In Amenas are Japanese, AFP reported.

The Malaysian foreign ministry said that at least two of its nationals remain unaccounted for, and there was a "worrying possibility" that one of them was dead. The other three Malaysians who had been working at the plant had been confirmed safe.

The whereabouts of five Norwegians is also unclear; several reports said that they may have been killed during the hostage crisis at the plant.

The attackers' ranks reportedly spanned six nationalities, including Arabs, Africans and other non-African nations. Of the 32 militants killed, only three were Algerian.

It was reported Saturday that one of the group's leaders, a veteran fighter from Niger called Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, headed a group of militants who were killed during the final assault. The other group's leader, Abu al-Bara'a al-Jaza'iri, was reportedly killed earlier by the Algerian army at the gas field's residential complex. Reports also suggested that the head commander of the kidnappers, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who is linked to a regional Al-Qaeda group, was not at the plant during the militants’ assault.

Malian militants seized the In Amenas natural gas installation in the Algerian Sahara on Wednesday, taking hundreds of hostages, including many foreigners. The militant group said it conducted the raid in retaliation for France’s engagement in the Mali crisis.

The militants also demanded the release of two terrorists held in the US in return for the hostages. One of the terrorists, Omar Abdel-Rahman, known as ‘The Blind Sheikh,’ played a role in the planning of the 9/11 attacks in 1993.

A number of countries, including the UK and Japan, initially expressed their dissatisfaction over Algerian authorities’ response to the hostage situation because the rescue operation was ordered without consultation. Prime Minister Cameron and French President Francois Hollande later praised Algeria for taking appropriate action in what they called an “extremely difficult” situation.

US President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Francois Hollande said that responsibility for the hostage deaths lay with the “terrorists".

“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,” Obama said after at least one American had been confirmed dead.

Hostages recall the nightmare

As the siege of the isolated Algerian plant is over, survivors of what was one of the largest hostage crises in recent memory recall the horror of their ordeal.

Some freed workers have described being forced to wear explosive jackets and being threatened with being blown up, others described watching the summary execution of hostages by their captors.

At a press conference on Sunday, some of the freed workers from the 72-hour stand-off gave an account of how nine Japanese hostages were murdered. 

Witnesses said the first three were killed as they tried to escape from a bus taking them to the airport.  

"We were all afraid when we heard bursts of gunfire at 5:30 am (04:30 GMT) on Wednesday, after we realized that they had just killed our Japanese colleagues who tried to flee from the bus," AFP quoted Riad, who works for Japan's JGC Corp engineering firm.

Earlier there were reports suggesting that one Briton and one Algerian were killed on a bus in the very initial assault by the militants. 

The gunmen then took the other bus passengers to the residential compound, where they collected hundreds of hostages, one witness explained. 

"A terrorist shouted 'open the door!' with a strong north American accent, and opened fire. Two other Japanese died then and we found four other Japanese bodiesin the compound”, he added, choking with emotion.

At the same time the Algerian workers were held separately from foreigners. According to witness recounts they were treated well as the militants were not interested in killing non Christians. Eventually they were allowed to leave.

"I was allowed to go, but before I did, I saw many Brits killed," one unnamed man was quoted by media. "One Westerner trying to give first aid was blown up by the terrorists."

An unnamed witness, who said he worked as an engineer, told the French press that militants were shouting: “We’re only looking for foreigners, you Algerians can go!” 

Some workers managed to flee the gas complex by cutting a hole through the metal fence, according to accounts in the media. 

There have been some reports that a 57-year-old Norwegian was among those who escaped through the fence. He told the press that exhausted and severely dehydrated, he along with other people had to walk for 15 hours through the desert before reaching the nearest town of In Amenas. 

In another account reported in the media, an Algerian driver named only as Brahim said he was lucky to escape through the fence surrounding the complex with about 50 people including three foreigners.

"As bullets rang nonstop, we cut holes in the metal fence with large clippers, and once through, we all started running," he said. "We were quickly taken in by the special forces stationed just a dozen meters from the base. I didn't look back."