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that Obabble and his band of fools could not anticipate.
Al-Qaida-linked militants seize BP complex in Algeria, take hostages over Mali intervention - The Washington Post
(here comes the bbbbut bush chorus)
The militants say they seized the foreigners in retaliation for France's military intervention in Mali. French troops and warplanes have been trying to push back Islamists linked to al-Qaida who control the northern part of the landlocked African nation. ​​The group of hostages - up to 41 people, according to reports from the scene - include at least seven Americans, plus Britons, French, Japanese and Norwegian nationals. Well over 100 Algerians also were seized when the militants attacked at dawn, crossing the desert in four-wheel-drive vehicles. The Algerian captives were released later in small groups, however.
Algerian officials said the militants were surrounded by government troops as night fell, with no obvious way to escape from the energy complex with their captives, but those accounts were impossible to verify. Algeria's interior minister, Dahou Ould Kablia, said his country will not negotiate with terrorists. The attackers are believed to have killed at least two people, possibly more, including one British national. Six other foreigners were believed wounded.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the kidnappings were an act of terrorism, and the United States will take all "necessary and proper steps" to deal with the situation. The kidnappers' exact affiliations are not clear, but a member of the group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) spoke on their behalf to VOA Wednesday. He said the U.S. must "face the consequences" if it gives any assistance to the French military effort that began in Mali earlier this month. The United States listed the AQIM group as a terrorist organization more than 10 years ago.
The spokesman for the Islamic Maghreb group said France has declared "war" on Islamists in northern Mali, and he vowed that Westerners would be harmed if the intervention continues. In Washington, the State Department said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton contacted Algeria's Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal. French forces entered Mali last week to help drive back Islamist militants moving towards the capital. At least three al-Qaida-linked groups are among those who seized control of northern Mali last year. Algeria had long warned against military intervention against the rebels in northern Mali, fearing the violence could spill over its own long and porous border.
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Secretary Panetta says the United States will take all necessary and proper steps in response to the hostage crisis at the facility, run by British, Norwegian and Algerian companies. The United States strongly condemns these kinds of terrorist acts. It is a very serious matter when Americans are taken hostage, along with others," he said. Speaking in Rome, Panetta said he did not know how many Americans are among the hostages. But a spokesman for the al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb militant group told VOA there are seven American hostages, and that the United States will face the consequences if it tries to help France in its military operation against the group in Mali.
Secretary Panetta previously said the United States will not send ground troops, but will provide intelligence, logistics and transportation support to the French forces in Mali. On Wednesday he said the assistance plan is under legal review but he is confident it will be approved based on laws authorizing the war on terrorism. I do know that terrorists are terrorists, and terrorists take these kinds of actions not just in Algeria, they take them elsewhere ... and we have witnessed their behavior in a number of occasions where they have total disregard for innocent men and women. And this appears to be that kind of situation," he said.
Al-Qaida expert Alia Brahimi of the London School of Economics said Wednesday the Islamic Maghreb group and others in North Africa have changed their goals over the past year, moving away from a focus on local and regional issues. There is a common consciousness emerging now in Africa among militant groups - in Somalia, in Nigeria, in Algeria - who were once obsessively localized, who are increasingly buying into the notion of global jihad, and who feel that they can reinvent their past record of failure and infighting by actually becoming more faithful affiliates of the al-Qaida brand and are focusing on attacking the West," she said. Brahimi says the al-Qaida move to take over all of Mali, which sparked the French action, would have created a base of operations from which more attacks on the West would have been planned.
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