Algerian Prime Minister Sellal Briefed Press Jan. 21, on the Hostage Crisis In Amenas, Stressing National Sovereignty
At a press conference today in Algiers, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal detailed the entire hostage crisis at the BP/Sonatrach gas complex at In Amenas, including the details from the freed hostages, and also from three kidnappers who were arrested. He stressed the sovereignty of his nation, and reported on his government's actions in accordance with that.
"Algeria gave a stinging response to an attempt to destabilize the country. It was a full aggression to push the state to renege on its positions on the Mali conflict." Sellal firmly supported the decisions to close down the borders with Mali and, concerning opening up air space to the French Air Force, said that those decisions were taken "in full sovereignty and in conformity with the international law and the decisions of the UN Security Council on the situation in Mali. We will not accept any pressure coming from anywhere."
Sellal said he, himself, "was in telephone communications with 20 heads of government, including the British Prime Minister and Hillary Clinton." He said that, "The timing of the assault was dictated on the basis of assessment of the situation on the ground. It was up to the military command to determine the timing of the assault in order to save a maximum of human lives."
Sellal restated Algeria's position on these issues: "We are partisans of dialogue, but when the stability of the country is at stake, discussion is no longer possible. We will defend our country, and we have an army which is up to that task." He added that Algeria will not violate the two principles inscribed in its Constitution: "no meddling in the internal affairs of countries, and never to deploy the Algerian army outside of its own borders."
Despite heavy harassment from the media, alleging the "brutality" of the Algerian intervention, both French President François Hollande and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius have remained firm in defending Algeria's actions. On a national Europe 1 radio talk show on Jan. 19, Fabius very calmly informed his questioners of the fact that the criminal element was not the Algerian government but the hostage takers, which he accurately described as fully criminal elements, drug traffickers and murderers.
- In Amenas Hostage Episode -
The operation as Sellal described it, appears highly professional. Out of 790 hostages taken, the great majority were freed in a two-phase operation. Thirty-seven foreign hostages were killed, one Algerian, and 29 jihadists.
He reported that the group of terrorist kidnappers was made up of 32 individuals of 8 nationalities, including 3 Algerians, 11 Tunisians, 3 Malians, 2 Nigerians, 1 each from Canada, Egypt, and Mauritania.
The group organized by Mokthar Belmokthar, was led by Bencheneb Mohamed-Amine (Algeria). Sellal said the group had spent two months setting up the operation at the Mali/Algeria and Mali-Niger borders, and finally came in to In Amenas via Libya with heavy, sophisticated weapons.
"It was a premeditated attack," he stated. "In the beginning, the terrorists wanted to attack the bus transporting the expatriates, including the director general of British Petroleum, to the airport. They wanted to take foreigners hostage to Mali to use them for ransom. The fact that the escort counterattacked ruined this plan."
The group then split in two: 11 went to the gas company extending over 10 hectares, and the rest went to the living quarters, extending over 4 hectares. "They had intended to ... explode the gas site of In Amenas, aiming 5 missiles at it. Among the terrorists, three were explosives experts. Anti-personnel mines had been placed at different places, and explosives belts put on the hostages. A former driver of Niger origin, who had worked at the living quarters, served as a guide."
"The ANP and citizens of the area had started by negotiating with the hostage takers. But they seemed determined and their demands were not acceptable. That's when it was decided to have an elite unit of the ANP, trained for that type of operation, intervene."
The Prime Minister said that the first attack had freed a lot of the hostages. He reported that the jihadists put some hostages, whom they wanted to transport across the borders, into some cars. They initially tried to reach 11 of their accomplices, and it was then that the first three pickups of a convoy exploded, killing a first group of hostages. The second offensive was carried out by fresh ANP special forces, about which Sellal gave no more details. However, the last hostages were shot in the head by the jihadists. "It was a collective murder," he said.
