Hostages Dead in Bloody Climax to Siege in Algeria

Louafi Larbi/Reuters

Algerian police officers escorted a freed Norwegian hostage as he left the In Amenas police station on Saturday.

By ADAM NOSSITERBAMAKO, Mali — The four-day hostage crisis in the Sahara reached a bloody conclusion on Saturday as the Algerian Army carried out a final assault on the gas field taken over by Islamist militants, killing most of the remaining kidnappers and raising the total of hostages killed to at least 23, Algerian officials said.

Although the government declared an end to the siege, the authorities believed that a handful of jihadists were most likely hiding somewhere in the sprawling complex and said that troops were searching for them.

The details of what transpired in the Sahara and the final battle for the plant remained murky on Saturday night — as did information of which hostages died and how — with even the White House suggesting that it was unclear what had happened. A brief statement released early Saturday night said that the administration would “remain in close touch with the government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of what took place so that we can work together to prevent tragedies like this in the future.”

The British defense minister, Philip Hammond, called the loss of life “appalling and unacceptable” after reports that up to seven hostages were killed Saturday in the final hours of the standoff. The Algerian government also announced that 32 militants had been killed since Wednesday, although it cautioned that the casualty counts were provisional.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who appeared with Mr. Hammond at a news conference in London, said he did not yet have reliable information about the fate of the Americans at the facility, although a senior Algerian official said two had been found “safe and sound.”

What little information trickled out was as harrowing as what had come in the days before, when some hostages who had managed to escape told of workers being forced to wear explosives. They also said there was at least one summary execution and that some had died in the military’s initial rescue attempt.

On Saturday, an Algerian official reported that some bodies found by troops who rushed into the industrial complex were charred beyond recognition, making it difficult to distinguish between the captors and the captured. Two were assumed to be workers because they were handcuffed.

Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, emerged from a meeting of the government’s crisis committee late Saturday night with the news that five Britons and one British resident had died in the final rescue attempt, or were unaccounted for. He declined to provide details, saying that the government did not yet have a full picture of what happened and that police forces were still fanning out across Britain visiting each of the families involved and giving them “the support they need at this very difficult time.”

Most of the hundreds of workers at the plant, from numerous countries, appear to have escaped sometime during the crisis.

The Algerian government has been relatively silent since the start of the crisis, releasing few details. It faced withering international criticism for rushing ahead with an assault on the plant even as governments whose citizens were trapped inside pleaded for more time, fearing that the rescue attempts might lead to more workers dying. The Algerians responded by saying they had a better understanding of how to handle militants after fighting Islamist insurgents for years.

On Saturday, it was unclear at whose hands the last hostages died. Initial reports from Algerian state media said that seven workers had been executed, but two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity later said both the number killed and the cause were unknown. Initial reports also said 11 militants were killed, but later information suggested that some may have blown themselves up.

One of the Algerian officials defended the military assault on Saturday, saying the government feared the militants were about to set off explosions at the In Amenas complex.

The militants had set fire to the plant’s control tower on Friday night, creating an “immense fire,” the official said, only extinguished through an all-night effort by soldiers and workers. They then attempted to blow up a pipeline, he said. Worried officials recalled that there were stocks of gas at the plant.

“The authorities were afraid they were going to blow up the reserves,” said the senior official, who believed the militants had planned all along to destroy the plant.

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