Reuters/Algiers
Militants attacked a gas field in Algeria yesterday, claiming to have kidnapped up to 41 foreigners including seven Americans in a dawn raid in retaliation for France’s intervention in Mali, according to regional media reports.
The raiders were also reported to have killed three people, including a Briton and a French national.
An Al Qaeda affiliated group said the raid had been carried out because of Algeria’s decision to allow France to use its air space for attacks against Islamists in Mali, where French forces have been in action against Al Qaeda-linked militants since last week.
The attack in southern Algeria also raised fears that the French action in Mali could prompt further revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe.
AQIM said it had carried out yesterday’s raid on the In Amenas gas facility in Opec member Algeria, Mauritania’s ANI news agency reported.
The Algerian interior ministry said: “A terrorist group, heavily armed and using three vehicles, launched an attack this Wednesday at 5am against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100km from the Algerian and Libyan border.”
“The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate,” Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia was quoted as saying by official news agency APS.
The gas field is operated by a joint venture including BP , Norwegian oil firm Statoil and Algerian state company Sonatrach.
BP said armed men were still occupying facilities at the gas field, which produces 9bn cubic metres of gas a year (160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day), more than a tenth of the country’s overall gas output, and 60,000 barrels a day of condensate.
“The site was attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people at about 0500 UK time. Contact with the site is extremely difficult, but we understand that armed individuals are still occupying the In Amenas operations site,” it said.
Amenas gas facility
