ALGIERS: Algeria defended yesterday its controversial military intervention to end the bloody seizure by armed Islamists last year of the In Amenas desert gas plant, in which 38 hostages were killed.
“The intervention by Algerian security forces was imperative for saving hundreds of human lives and protecting a strategic site the terrorists were planning to blow up,” foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani said in a statement.
His comments come days before the January 16 anniversary of the crisis, which saw hundreds of staff held at the plant until security forces ended the stand-off.
The statement follows articles in the foreign media quoting survivors blaming poor security at the site, which lies deep in the Sahara desert, 1,300km southeast of Algiers. Belani slammed “the one-sided agitating in certain foreign media around the anniversary.”
“We reject the biased claims and absurd allegations published by those media which... almost exonerate the authors of this heinous attack and portray a gang of lawless criminals as potential interlocutors with whom there was an opportunity to negotiate.”
The hostage raid was masterminded by jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar whose breakaway Al Qaeda group “Signatories in Blood” claimed the four-day siege, saying it was in retaliation for France’s military intervention against Islamist militants in Mali.
The assault on the isolated facility ended with 38 hostages, all but one foreigner, and 29 militants killed. AFP
