41 westerners abducted near In Amenas

[priffe]

Some fascinating background details; involvement of Abou Zeid; hints of an inside job; and more.

http://www.liberte-algerie.com/actua...-amenas-192758

[roro]

VEry interesting,bu , may be, need to be confirmed...

RR.

[priffe]

Final (?) assessment

29 terrorists killed, 3 arrested
3 algerians,11 tunisians, 2 canadians (likely forged passports),mauretanians, nigerians, egyptians, malians, moroccans.

37 hostages of eight nationalities and 1 algerian killed

The terrorists came in from Mali sneaking along the Algerian border through Niger and then Libya. The attack had been planned by MBM for two months at Aguelhoc, using inside information, with detailed plans of the plant. The satellite phone call to start the operation came from near Gao three hours before the attack and was intercepted by the Algerians.
Les révélations de Sellal - Actualité - El Watan

The Algerian way of seeing it, no other special force would have done a better job then the People's National Army did. That the Brits or anyone else could have played a role is shrugged off. That the attack could take place was not because of Algerian mistakes. Instead, they are saying that security has become lax because foreign companies such as BP have chosen to buy the services of private security companies.
Sécurisation à tout prix - Edito - El Watan
As the foreign security people became hostages, it was the Alg army that dealt with the situation.

In a worse case scenario, a large part of the desert could have blown up - 40 km radius according to some.
In Amenas encore sous le choc - Actualité - El Watan
The alg security guard who triggered the alarm before he died is seen as a hero who saved the plant and hundreds of lives. Gas production stopped immediately and the pressure was lowered, actions that prevented a huge disaster. Production resumed two days later.
Had a despondent call from Djanet, they expect it to take years before they see another tourist.

[Chris Scott]

Abdou from the agency in Djanet said tourism was down 80% last year.
Now they've shown they're prepared to kamikaze themselves, this year it may approach three figures.
He flew out on the same plane as us...

Interestingly, two of us carried SPOT trackers for those back home who wanted to follow our progress, but from Wed am for 36 hours - just when most followers may have been getting alarmed as the news spread - tracking and waypoints on both units did not appear on the map. We were about 400km south of the plant.

Ch

[gvdaa]

Intersting remark about spot trackers. So Americans put gps system on hold?

[Roman]

Hello gvdaa,

It's not that the GPS system had to be on hold. SPOT beams the GPS co-ordinates to the Globalstar Simplex network, which is in fact a satellite telephony network, like Thuraya, operating its own satellite receivers (GPS satellites are transmitters). The nearest Globalstar facility is in the south of France. Like most sat phone networks, apart from being highly unreliable, they can be easily manipulated, with or without the operator's involvement. It's much more likely, and easily explicable, that during the hostage situation all sat phone communications in a wide area around In Amenas were controlled by the Americans, if not the French themselves.

[priffe]

Even if Belmohktar's video was pre-recorded, one had the impression that his group could communicate directly with their media outlet in Mauretania (ANI, now under investigation) and publish details from the event as it progressed?

[Chris Scott]

Perhaps at 40km, Tiguentourine was within range of In Amenas mobile signal or the whole highway to Ilizzi gets mobile.
As we know they have gone out of their way before to use mobiles (Fowler) instead of more easily trackable sat phones.

Jamming weak GPS signal locally is quite easy, I read. Although over a 400km radius may take some doing.

Ch

[Richard Washington]

The phone message from N Mali via MBM I think the article said, gave the go-ahead for the operation. Crucially this is what the intelligence missed. Does anyone know if that was a mobile or satellite signal?

[steview]

Algeria hostage crisis: the full story of the kidnapping in the desert | World news | guardian.co.uk

An interesting examination of the event and as full an account as I've found so far, much from survivors.

[Richard Washington]

Thanks for the link Steview. There's good detail in that article.

I've not seen much good analysis of the event in the UK press though. I don't think the journos know enought about the region. A lot of the material has been really poor.

[priffe]

Even more gruesome details from what was a pure suicide mission
Militants’ Goal in Algeria Gas Plant Siege: Giant Fireball

[priffe]

Algerian report with some more details and geography

In Aménas : le plan secret des terroristes - A la une - El Watan



Belmohktar now said to be entrenched in SW Libya where he has bought the loyalty of Ubari touaregs. Anyone here with good knowledge of the region?

Added by CS:
The 'Oudian er-Rouan' marked so prominently on the map above as if it might be a significant place sounds a lot like 'Oued Iraounene' as marked on older Mich 953 maps. This is the course of the main road between Ubari and Serdeles also visible on the map, aka locally as Wadi Adjal. (In Libya they don't use 'oued').

[Chris Scott]

Tuesday 10pm on C4

Siege in the Sahara - Channel 4

[overlander2]

Also: BBC2 2115 Saturday - Terror in the Desert

John H

Adventure before Dementia