Algeria says 37 foreigners died in siege

Update: 3:51 p.m. ET

A total of 37 foreigners and one Algerian died at a Saharan desert gas plant, and five are still missing following a four-day hostage-taking coordinated by a Canadian gunman, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Monday.

Sellal also told a news conference that 29 Islamists had been killed in the siege, which Algerian forces ended by storming the plant on Saturday, while three were taken alive. Most of the gunmen were from various states of north and west Africa.

With some bodies burned beyond recognition and Algerian forces still combing the sprawling site, some details were still unclear or at odds with figures from other governments.

Of the 38 dead captives, out of a total workforce of some 800 at the In Amenas gas facility, seven were still unidentified but assumed to be foreigners, Sellal said.

Citizens of nine countries died, he said, among them three Americans, six Filipinos, two Romanians, seven Japanese, a Frenchman and three Britons plus a London-based Colombian were missing and believed dead.

Norway said the fate of five of its citizens was unclear; in addition to seven Japanese dead, Tokyo said three were missing.

Sellal said special forces and army units were deployed against the militants, who had planted explosives in the gas plant with a view to blowing up the facility. Normally producing 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas, it was shut down during the incident. The government aims to reopen the plant this week.

Update: 2:42 p.m. ET

The State Department has confirmed that gas workers Victor Lynn Lovelady and Gordon Lee Rowan were killed at the Ain Amenas gas field in the Sahara. U.S. officials previously identified Texas resident Frederick Buttaccio as the first death last week.

"We extend our deepest condolences to their families and friends," department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

"The blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out, and the United States condemns their actions in the strongest possible terms," she added. "We will continue to work closely with the government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of the terrorist attack of last week and how we can work together moving forward to combat such threats in the future."

A U.S. official had told The Associated Press earlier Monday that the FBI had recovered Lovelady's and Rowan's bodies and notified their families. The official had no details on how the Americans died, and their hometowns were not released.

Militants who attacked the Ain Amenas gas field in the Sahara had offered to release Lovelady and Rowan in exchange for the freedom of two prominent terror suspects jailed in the United States: Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind sheik convicted of plotting to blow up New York City landmarks and considered the spiritual leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist convicted of shooting at two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Obama administration rejected the offer outright

Update: 11:35 a.m. ET

A Canadian coordinated the Islamist attack on an Algerian gas plant in the Sahara desert, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said Monday, according to Reuters.

"A Canadian was among the militants. He was coordinating the attack," Sellal told a news conference.

Earlier, an Algerian security source told media that documents found on the bodies of two militants had identified them as Canadians.

Update: 11:21 a.m. ET

Algeria's prime minister says a former driver at a natural gas complex was among the band of al-Qaida-linked militants who stormed the site and took hundreds of workers hostage.

Abdelmalek Sellal says the former driver was from Nigeria.

He says the terror cell also included two Canadians, but did not say whether the Canadians were among the 29 militants killed by Algerian forces who raided the vast complex, or the three who were captured alive.

At least 38 hostages died in the attack — all but one of them foreigners. Algerian authorities say five more remain unaccounted for.

The prime minister says the hostage-takers knew the layout of the site by heart.

—

ALGIERS, Algeria —Two more Americans were added to the death toll of 80 killed so far in the terrorist siege at a natural gas plant in the Sahara Sunday as Algerian forces searching the refinery for explosives found dozens more bodies.

A U.S. official said three Americans in total were killed and seven made it out of the plant.

Many of the newly discovered bodies are so badly disfigured it was unclear whether they were hostages or militants, a security official said.

Algerian special forces stormed the plant Saturday to end the four-day siege, moving in to thwart what government officials said was a plot by the Islamic extremists to blow up the complex and kill all their captives with mines sown throughout the site.

In a statement, the Masked Brigade, the group that claimed to have masterminded the takeover, warned of more such attacks against any country backing France's military intervention in neighboring Mali, where the French are trying to stop an advance by Islamic extremists.

"We stress to our Muslim brothers the necessity to stay away from all the Western companies and complexes for their own safety, and especially the French ones," the statement said.

RELATED: Insight: Algerian gas plant uncloaks its grisly secrets

Algeria said after Saturday's assault by government forces that at least 32 extremists and 23 hostages were killed. On Sunday, Algerian bomb squads sent in to blow up or defuse the explosives found 25 more bodies, said the security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

"These bodies are difficult to identify. They could be the bodies of foreign hostages or Algerians or terrorists," the official said.

VIDEO: Death toll likely to rise in Algeria

In addition, a wounded Romanian who had been evacuated died, raising the overall death toll to at least 81.

"Now, of course, people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched a vicious and cowardly attack," British Prime Minister David Cameron said. Three Britons were killed and another three were feared dead.

On Monday, Philippine Foreign Affairs officials said six Filipinos were among the hostages killed. Spokesman Raul Hernandez told reporters that 16 Filipinos have been accounted for and four others are still missing.

The dead hostages were also known to include at least one American and French workers. Nearly two dozen foreigners by some estimates were unaccounted for.

It was unclear whether anyone was rescued in the final assault on the complex, which is run by the Algerian state oil company along with BP and Norway's Statoil.

Two private Algerian TV stations and an online news site said security forces scouring the plant found five militants hiding out and learned that three others had fled. That information could not be immediately confirmed by security officials.

Authorities said the bloody takeover was carried out Wednesday by 32 men from six countries, under the command from afar of the one-eyed Algerian bandit Moktar Belmoktar, founder of the Masked Brigade, based in Mali. The attacking force called itself "Those Who Sign in Blood."

The Masked Brigade said Sunday the attack was payback against Algeria for allowing over-flights of French aircraft headed to Mali and for closing its long border with Mali. In an earlier communication, the Brigade claimed to have carried out the attack in the name of al-Qaida.

Armed with heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, missiles and grenades, the militants singled out foreign workers at the plant, killing some of them on the spot and attaching explosive belts to others.

Algeria's tough and uncompromising response to the crisis was typical of its take-no-prisoners approach in confronting terrorists, favoring military action over negotiation. Algerian military forces, backed by attack helicopters, launched two assaults on the plant, the first one on Thursday.

The militants had "decided to succeed in the operation as planned, to blow up the gas complex and kill all the hostages," Algerian Communications Minister Mohamed Said told state radio.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said the terrorists had tried to blow up the plant Saturday but managed only to start a small fire. "That's when they started to execute hostages, and the special forces intervened," Eide said. Norway's Statoil said five Norwegians were still missing.

An audio recording of Algerian security forces speaking with the head of the kidnappers, Abdel Rahman al-Nigiri, on the second day of the drama indicated the hostage-takers were trying to organize a prisoner swap.

"You see our demands are so easy, so easy if you want to negotiate with us," al-Nigiri said in the recording broadcast by Algerian television. "We want the prisoners you have, the comrades who were arrested and imprisoned 15 years ago. We want 100 of them."

In another phone call, al-Nigiri said that half the militants had been killed by the Algerian army Thursday and that he was ready to blow up the remaining hostages if security forces attacked again. An organization that monitors videos from radicals posted one showing al-Nigiri with what appeared to be an explosive belt around his waist.

The Algerians' use of forced raised an international outcry from some countries worried about their citizens.

But French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday on French television: "The terrorists ... they're the ones to blame."

David Plouffe, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said that al-Qaida and al-Qaida-affiliated groups remain a threat in North Africa and other parts of the world, and that the U.S. is determined to help other countries destroy those networks.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Plouffe said the tragedy in Algeria shows once again "that all across the globe countries are threatened by terrorists who will use civilians to try and advance their twisted and sick agenda."

Associated Press writers Paul Schemm and Lori Hinnant contributed to this report.

-----

MSN News on Facebook and Twitter
Stay up to date on breaking news and current events.
Friend us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/news.msn
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/msnnews