Algeria says 37 foreigners killed in gas plant siege - The Express Tribune

File photo of the gas field in Amenas, Algeria provided by Scanpix April 19, 2005. PHOTO: REUTERS

ALGIERS: Thirty-seven foreigners of eight nationalities were killed by militants in a well-planned attack on a remote gas plant, some of them executed with a bullet to the head, Algeria's premier said.

The grim body count was issued late Monday as the government gave its first death toll from the four-day crisis at the In Amenas gas plant, deep in the Sahara, which produced one of the worst hostage bloodbaths for years.

Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said one Algerian was also killed and five other foreigners were still missing after the hostage-taking by militants who claimed to be retaliating against French military intervention in Mali.

"Thirty-seven foreigners of eight different nationalities" were killed during the siege, Sellal told reporters, adding that some of the hostages were gunned down in cold blood "with a bullet to the head".

With the death of the Algerian hostage, the overall toll among the captives stood at 38.

Sellal did not specify the foreigners' nationalities and seven of them remain unidentified. But governments have confirmed the deaths of seven Japanese, six Filipinos, three Americans, three Britons, two Romanians and one Frenchman.

A total of 29 militants were killed and three captured in the siege, which ended in a final showdown on Saturday between special forces and the remaining militants holed up in the sprawling gas complex.

Sellal said the militant gang included a Canadian, 11 Tunisians, three Algerians and others from northern Africa.

Some foreign leaders initially accused Algeria of keeping them in the dark about a military operation that many observers found hasty. But criticism then focused on the militants behind the crisis and broader threats.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the act of "despicable terrorism". "Japanese people who work at the world's frontiers, innocent people, were victimised. It is extremely painful," he said.

Britain said it would use its chairmanship of the Group of Eight richest nations, which began this month, to focus on the terror threat following developments in Algeria and its conflict-torn neighbour Mali.

Prime Minister David Cameron said North Africa was becoming a "magnet" for fighters from other countries, and that the threat there now outweighed that from militants' hotbeds in Afghanistan and Pakistan.