Dozens held after Islamists attack Algerian gas field

Yahoo News ^ | January 16, 2013 | Lamine Chikhi

[JerseyanExile]

Islamist militants attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, 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 Islamist 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 Wednesday's raid on the In Amenas gas facility in 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 5 a.m. against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Algerian and Libyan border."

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.

Algeria's official APS news agency said a Briton and an Algerian security guard had been killed and seven people were injured. A French national was also killed in the attack, a local source said.

Among those reported kidnapped by sources were five Japanese nationals working for the Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Irishman, a Norwegian and a number of Britons.

[reg45]

I think that it is time for France to resume nuclear testing in the Sahara Desert.

[livius]

We’re not doing well, but AQ has certainly flourished under Obama.

[Candor7]

More of Gadhaffi’s Obama liberated arsenal being seeded with Islamofascists who take an Algerian oil field?

Seal Team 6 ?

Obamas misdeeds in Libya will result in hundreds of thousands unnecessary deaths, many of whom will be US citizens.

[Fred Nerks]

Seems to me the cultists are falling into the trap that will see them annihilated in the desert where there are no witnesses.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Livius #4: You have the best summary of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy that I’ve seen yet.

I wonder if the media has found out about this? NOT!

[Candor7]

Seems to me the cultists are falling into the trap that will see them annihilated in the desert where there are no witnesses>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That would be true Fred as long as no one is depending on the USA under barak hussein obama to act.The best he can fdo is send in a drone.

Possibly the French Foreign Legion might act. But any American working for an oil company will not be rescued by the us state department. It would be different if the captured hostage was a US citizen working for a Green Energy Corporation.

The left is in charge now. Americans will now die because of what obama has done in libya, and because oil companies are politically incorrect in obamaworld.