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Joseph Balmaceda, centre, one of the four Filipino oil field workers who was wounded but survived the siege. Bullit Marquez/AP/Press Association Images

'They were brutally executed' - Hostages describe Algeria siege ordeal

Survivors of the four-day crisis say they were strapped to explosives while some describe finding bodies riddled with bullets, their heads half blown away by the impact.

“YOU ARE ALGERIANS and Muslims, you have nothing to fear. We’re looking for Christians, who kill our brothers in Mali and Afghanistan,” the Islamists shouted to their Algerian hostages, as chilling accounts emerged of the siege.

The gunmen, numbering more than 30 and belonging the “Signatories in Blood” group of former Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, launched their brazen hostage attack at the In Amenas gas plant at dawn on Wednesday.

Riad, an Algerian employee of Japan’s JGC engineering firm, described how three of his Japanese colleagues were executed after the Islamists attacked the bus that was taking them to the airport.

“We were all terrified when we heard bursts of gunfire at 5:30 am on Wednesday, after we realised that they had just killed our Japanese colleagues who tried to flee,” he said.

The gunmen then took the passengers to the plant’s residential compound, where they had seized hundreds of foreign and Algerian hostages.

“A terrorist shouted ‘open the door!’ with a strong North American accent, and opened fire. Two other Japanese died then and we found four other Japanese bodies” in the compound, said Riad, choking with emotion.

‘Bodies riddled with bullets’

No official images of the attack have been released. But survivors took photos, seen by AFP, showing bodies riddled with bullets, some with their heads half blown away by the impact.

In this undated photo, a man stands next to the body of an unidentified person near In Amenas Algerian bomb squads scouring a gas plant where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage found “numerous” new bodies on Sunday. Pic: AP Photo/Echorouk Elyaoumi

“They were brutally executed,” said Brahim, another Algerian who escaped the ordeal, with a shudder, referring to the some of the Japanese victims.

In the past few days, survivors have told how they were strapped to explosives, and the apparent leader of the militants, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, confirmed he was ready at any time to blow up the hostages.

A British man was threatened into calling out to his colleagues in English: “Come out, they’re not going to kill you,” according to an Algerian worker named Chabene who heard the exchange before he escaped.

He said they ordered the man to yell, “‘They’re not going to kill you. They’re looking for the Americans’. A few minutes later they blew him away.”

Abdelkader, an employee of the British oil firm BP that jointly operates the In Amenas plant, was at a security post with some colleagues when he saw a jeep with seven people inside smashing through the barrier and screeching to a halt.

Getting out of the vehicle, one of the militants demanded their mobile phones and ordered them to not to move, before disabling the security cameras.

“He said: ‘You are Algerians and Muslims, you have nothing to fear. We’re looking for Christians, who kill our brothers in Mali and Afghanistan and plunder our resources’.”

Bloody end

The assailants then shot a security guard in the foot and led the group to the plant, said Abdelkader, in his 40s, adding he was freed after telling the gunmen he was a father of four.

In this undated photo, men look at the wreckage of a vehicle near in Amenas. Pic: AP Photo/Echorouk Elyaoumi

The hostage crisis was brought to a bloody end on Saturday by the Algerian military, with at least 25 foreigners and Algerians killed, as well as 32 kidnappers, and a government minister warning the toll could rise.

The witnesses agreed the hostage-takers were “very well informed” about the sprawling In Amenas gas complex, deep in the Algerian Sahara and close to the Libyan border, that they occupied for four days.

They knew the internal procedures, the room numbers of the foreign workers, and they attacked the bases of BP and JGC, the only ones where there were foreigners, said Riad, the JGC employee.

“They had accomplices on the inside.”

He and his companions escaped on Thursday during an exchange of gunfire between the kidnappers and the Algerian special forces, who managed to free most of the hostages at the residential compound in their first assault on the complex.

The Algerians fled to the buildings of the Italian firm Sarpi, which had been spared the attack, and when the BP living quarters were liberated they went to the JGC base to gather their belongings.

There they discovered the bodies of seven Islamists, and a Malaysian colleague in a state of shock, hiding under the bed.

– AFP, 2013

Read: Death toll climbs past 80 in siege in Algerian hostage crisis

Read: Algeria hostage ‘arrives home to Ireland’

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    Mute Mick Jordan
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    Jan 21st 2013, 2:01 PM

    “We are here for the Christians”. Hmm maybe the Algerians should have waited uh Damoclies? How many of the hostages were already dead before the Algerians went in? 20,30? How many more would have died waiting for that extra assistance?

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    Mute Damocles
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    Jan 21st 2013, 2:27 PM

    “Damoclies”

    I’m not even going to bother, that’s just childish.

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    Mute Patrick Lavery
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    Jan 21st 2013, 3:29 PM

    People..yuo think that as Europeans,the “Freedom fighter”you are dealing with or reading about has the same “euro” thoughtstream as yourselves..Ah No..In his Religeous zealot eyes..you are the problem to be eradicated..plus your wife,kids,extended family,neighbours in fact everybody who does not subscribe to his beliefs.

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    Mute Declan Noonan
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    Jan 21st 2013, 5:03 PM

    And Japanese are buddhists!

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    Mute Sean Mee
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    Jan 21st 2013, 2:36 PM

    Regardless of British/American foreign policy, it is no justification to murder innocent workers. There is never a justification for terrorism.

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    Mute John Jordan
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    Jan 21st 2013, 5:21 PM

    Relax everybody, none of the oil or gas was damaged in the attack. Life goes on as normal.

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    Mute Dr_Serious
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    Jan 21st 2013, 6:06 PM

    You’re some moron

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    Mute John Jordan
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    Jan 21st 2013, 8:47 PM

    It was an ironic comment in fairness, on the general hidden price of oil and gas, but shur don’t worry

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    Mute Kevin O'Brien
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    Jan 21st 2013, 2:31 PM

    If the tenets of Islam or being a victim of big power politics were enough to drive a person to murder, then the world would be full of rabid Islamic fundamentalists. It’s not, so the logic behind both of your posts is faulty.

    Neither of you are taking into account personal responsibility. It takes a certain type of person to kill another human being in a premeditated assault. Any religious or political reasoning behind such an attack is just a flimsy attempt at justifying the unjustifiable. Quite simply, these people were monsters with no regard for life.

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    Mute John Jordan
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    Jan 21st 2013, 7:05 PM

    It was an ironic comment in fairness, on the general hidden price of oil and gas, but shur don’t worry.

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    Mute Mark Quigley
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    Jan 21st 2013, 2:21 PM

    Stupid comment. I think religion is to blame. Oh and American/British foreign policy.

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    Mute BrianFlaherty
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    Jan 21st 2013, 2:58 PM

    Kevin

    The Islamic world is full of muslims who will kill those who insult islam, the only reason the rest of the world isn’t , is because we are not all muslim yet and there are people willing to oppose it. I would like to see you say that in the various parts of England where in London muslim patrols are now going around telling people to cover up and others to stop drinking, they also previously blacked out body parts like legs of women on bus shelter posters etc. Of course lest we forget the directors and others killed for depicting islam in any way critical. I do not see that happening with any other religion. Get real.

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    Mute Vincent Kavanagh
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    Jan 21st 2013, 11:12 PM

    Its really getting that this will be a world war well a holly war hope im on the winning side :-)

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    Mute RiobairdOMaingain
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    Jan 22nd 2013, 6:10 AM

    The current trend of blaming financial woes on ‘foreigners’ such as in France,UK,Greece and slowly but surely Ireland and the rise of Far Right parties will be the start of the Third World War.Islamists must be crushed without mercy they thrive on the tolerance of the West.

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