INSIGHT-Algeria gas plant gives up its grisly secrets

ALGIERS Mon Jan 21, 2013 9:39am EST

ALGIERS Jan 21 (Reuters) - The gas plant at In Amenas is giving up its secrets as Algerian special forces picking their way through the vast complex find dozens of bodies, some charred beyond recognition in the bloody end-game to one of the worst hostage crises in years.

Five days after 40 jihadist fighters raided the desert facility not far from the Libyan border and Algeria responded with a full-on military operation to kill or capture them, a picture of what happened is beginning to emerge.

While some of the hostages escaped in the early stages of the crisis, hopes faded for dozens of others, foreign workers and Algerians, once the army decided to take on the raiders.

Those who escaped had harrowing tales to tell. One Briton recounted how the attackers had strapped Semtex plastic explosive to his neck, bound his hands and taped his mouth shut. Another man hid for more than a day and a half under his bed as jihadist fighters searched the workers' residential complex.

Algerian sources said the attackers had come from Libya, but two of the Islamist fighters whose bodies were recovered appeared to be Canadian.

Workers from the United States, Britain, France, Japan, Romania, Norway and the Philippines were either dead of missing, with the overall death toll among hostages and militants put at 80 and rising.

The In Amenas gas plant probably felt impregnable to many who worked there - fenced in, hundreds of miles from anywhere and with the Algerian army patrolling its desert approaches.

That was a mirage. Libya, an ex-police state turned arms bazaar and now open for jihad, lies just 50 miles away. And in any case, the enemy was probably already inside the gates.

At least some the Islamist guerrillas who stormed in before dawn on Wednesday had driven along smugglers' tracks across the Libyan border just after midnight, an Algerian security official told Reuters, citing evidence from mobile phones traced to the militants.


The militants arrived in nine Toyotas with Libyan plates and painted in the colours of Sonatrach, the Algerian oil and gas company that has a share in the plant, according to the Algerian daily El Khabar.


"They had local cooperation, I'm sure, maybe from drivers or security guards, who helped the terrorists get into the base," said Anis Rahmani, editor of Algeria's Ennahar newspaper and a writer on security issues who said he was briefed by officials.

Officials in this secretive country said they had discovered cases before when Islamist rebels succeeded in having fellow militants employed by international energy companies. One told Reuters it was possible insiders had cooperated at In Amenas.

Locally hired workers who escaped told Reuters of seeing the gunmen moving around the sprawling facility with confidence, apparently familiar with its layout and well prepared.

The militants said they launched the raid to halt French military intervention in neighbouring Mali, which began a week ago, however the link is not yet clear. Several European and U.S. officials said the assault seems too elaborate to have been planned in such a short time.


Much may never become clear. The raid was carried out in a region closed to outsiders within a country whose government is unused to sharing sensitive information with the public.




Two people, one British, one Algerian were killed on two buses heading for the airport. It is not clear whether that incident was part of the plan that secured the militants access to the compound. Almost immediately after the bus skirmish, they were inside, in at least three vehicles.

The first Briton to die was identified as a Gulf war veteran who had been in the French Foreign Legion and was working for a security company.

People who have worked at the site, which sits with its back to cliffs in the dunes, say there was normally an overnight curfew, leaving it unclear how the gunmen were able to get so close before being challenged. Their initial approach may have been well off the main roads.

Freed hostages spoke of an alarm being raised, of frightened people staying in their offices or hiding in their dormitories.




Pulled to safety on Thursday evening with other foreigners by Algerian soldiers who stormed the site, Berceaux had been so scared of being discovered that he only opened his bedroom door if the person knocking gave a secret password.


Rapidly the area was surrounded by heavily armed Algerian troops, with tanks, armoured vehicles and helicopter gunships from a nearby military base. The government in Algiers said it would not negotiate.


People who know the site, operated by Britain's BP and Statoil of Norway along with Algeria's state energy company, Sonatrach, said a barracks housing several hundred soldiers lies along the three km (two miles) of road separating the accommodation compound from the industrial plant.






The two men had cooperated before, Rahmani said, notably in damaging an airliner in 2007 at Djanet, further to the south.

While Ben Cheneb's group appeared to have moved on In Amenas from a base inside Algeria, Rahmani said, Belmokhtar's men, led by Abu El Bara, appeared to have come in from Libya. Ben Cheneb, however, was based in Libya and had married a Libyan woman only two months ago, according to El Khabar.


The group's field commander was a veteran fighter from Niger called Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, Mauritanian news agencies reported. He led his men into the gas plant, where he is believed to have been killed, while another of the group's leaders, Abu al-Bara'a al-Jaza'iri, was killed at the residential complex.

Noting the one-eyed Belmokhtar's reputation as a cigarette smuggler as well as a holy warrior - locals call him the "Mister Marlboro" - Rahmani added: "They use the same back roads as the smugglers. You need a perfect knowledge of the Sahara to do it.

"They can use the same wells as the smugglers, the same fuel dumps hidden in the desert."








Several former hostages described the attackers, from their accents, as appearing to be Libyan or Egyptian as well as Algerian. Officials said many of the dead gunmen were foreign.

Algeria told Western governments, which voiced dismay at the storming of the facility on Thursday, that troops moved in only because guerrillas were trying to leave with hostages, possibly hoping to reach the Malian border.



McFaul told how the attackers had turned him into a human bomb, strapping Semtex round his neck.




By Friday night, it remained unclear how many of the gunmen and their hostages were still in the facility - though both groups might number in the dozens.





The operation appeared to be over, but mopping up went on for many hours, with dozens more bodies still being found and many questions still to be answered.