Conflicting reports on number of hostages killed
Algerian forces have mounted an operation to free dozens of hostages held captive by Islamist insurgents in a gas installation in remote eastern Algeria. At the time of print, Algerian state media reported that the army had taken control of the complex but offered no information on potential casualties. While al-Jazeera reported that 35 hostages and 15 insurgents had been killed in the operation, Reuters reported that six hostages had been killed thus far and 25 had escaped.
According to the BBC, armed insurgents attacked the In Amenas gas installation, a joint venture among Norway’s Statoil, Britain’s BP and Algerian state-owned Sonatrach, in the early hours of Wednesday. There are no clear estimates of the number of people held hostage, but reports suggest 300 Algerians and 41 foreign nationals including French, American and Japanese, were captured.
A group called Al Mulathameen (The Brigade of the Masked Ones), a group affiliated to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), is believed to have held the workers captive. According to Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kabila, the raid was masterminded by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran fighter involved in insurgencies in Afghanistan and Algeria and dubbed Mr. Marlboro for his control of the cigarette smuggling operations in the Sahara.
The hostage crisis is an early indication that the French intervention in neighbouring Mali could have profound regional consequences for north and western Africa. The hostage takers had, among other demands, asked for a French withdrawal from central Mali.
Since early 2012, the Malian government has lost nearly two-thirds of its territory to a multi-dimensional insurgency in the north. Last week, France rushed troops, helicopters, and jets to Mali after Islamist rebels came within 50 km of the critical military base of Sevare in central Mali. Since then, the rebels have opened a new front at Diabaly, about 400 km from Bamako, the Malian capital.
While Algeria has declined to provide troops to an African mission for Mali, it has opened its airspace to French military aircraft. Meanwhile, neighbouring countries from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) have pledged a ground force of about 3000 troops, led by a Nigerian general.
Keywords: Algeria hostage crisis
Western intervention against fundamentalist has always been exclusive
to resource rich nations or nations of strategic importance.Moreover we
must not forget that Al-Qaeda and many similar organisations were
nurtured by western nations to keep in check their erstwhile enemies
which in present day has turned against them.
It is really worth noting that conflict ridden zones are expanding in Africa continent.Some of the Western people are responsible for such trend in peculiar way.While most of the people remain very poor in these African countries, rebels and government forces are the one who get high tech warfare machinery in exchange for petroleum which is abundantly present in these countries.So basically it is greed of western countries for oil which is making these clashes more voilent.French intervention in Mali though a relief for peace loving people is in some or other way a opportunity for french military to test their own weaponry.
It is facile to dismiss Western intervention in conflict zones around the world as being motivated by greed for oil, but the truth is that fundamentalists like the Al-Qaeda and their ilk pose the biggest threat to humanity than all the Western countries put together.
Please Email the Editor