The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks (35 page)

During the previous Friday's prayers, al-Shabaab commander Sheikh Muktar Robow had called for attacks in Uganda and Burundi, which contribute troops to the African Union force in Mogadishu. On July 13, 2010, al-Shabaab spokesman Yonis said the bombings involved planted explosives, not suicide bombers.

By July 14, 2010, authorities had arrested six people, including four foreigners, among them two Somalis. Security officials suggested that the local Muslim extremist group Allied Democratic Forces assisted the terrorists. Police said they are based in the mountains near the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By July 18, 2010, 20 people were in custody, including citizens of Uganda, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Some were caught near the borders with Sudan and Rwanda while trying to flee the country.

On August 11, 2010, Kenyan authorities announced that they had sent six suspects to Uganda and released a seventh. They included suspected al-Shabaab members Idris Magondu, a Nairobi driver, and Hussein Hassan Agade and Mohammed Adan Abdow, both street vendors, Agade in Nairobi and Abdow in Tawa. Kenyan police said Abdow, a Kenyan of Somali origin, had made satellite phone calls to al-Shabaab members.

Suspect Salmin Mohammed Khamis, 34, had been released on bail on August 9, 2010. He was accused of harboring some of the suspects. He had been acquitted in the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa. In 2003, he confessed to a failed plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

On September 15, 2010, Kampala authorities arrested Omar Awadh Omar (alias Abu Sahal), a Kenyan and deputy commander of al Qaeda in the region, and Agade, one of his aides, in connection with the attack. The Uganda website
New Vision
said the duo were planning a follow-up attack. Omar was a key logistics and intelligence link to al-Shabaab and deputy of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed. Authorities said Mohammed was behind the August 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

By October 10, 2010, Ugandan authorities had detained 36 suspects from seven countries—Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan. One individual admitted being recruited and trained by al Qaeda. The suspects included businessmen, university students, and leaders of small mosques. Among those detained was al-Amin Kimathi, an activist with the Muslim Human Rights Forum in Nairobi.

Police said suspect Haruna Luyima allegedly was to set off a fourth bomb at a Kampala dance club but changed his mind; he told a press conference in August 2010 that he did not want to hurt innocent people. He claimed he had been recruited into the plot by his elder brother, Isa Luyima. Mohamood Mugisha told police he was given $4,000 by the alShabaab plotters to help plan the attacks, rent a house in Uganda, and drive the bombs in from Somalia via Kenya.

The case remains open.

Overview:
In 2012, a Tuareg rebellion overthrew government authority in northern Mali. Government troops, who had just wrested control of the capital from an ineffective government, were powerless to stop the rebellion, which was soon hijacked by a confederation of Islamist groups, including al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Islamists quickly instituted an especially harsh interpretation of sharia, amputating appendages and destroying Timbuktu shrines. North African terrorists flocked to northern Mali in hopes of aiding the creation of a regional caliphate. While West African nations indicated willingness to send troops to quell the rebellion, their ability to field a competent military force under UN blessing and Economic Community of West African States control was months away.

When the Islamists began moving south, threatening to take over the rest of Mali, France sent more than 2,000 ground troops and attack aircraft to the country, bombarding Islamist locations. In response, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who had split with AQIM a few weeks earlier to create his own Islamist terrorist group, conducted the largest terrorist attack in the region in years. Terrorists seized Western hostages to pressure the French to end the incursion. Belmokhtar, whose faction had made millions of dollars since 2003 by kidnapping Westerners and smuggling cigarettes (giving him the nickname Marlboro Man), suddenly received worldwide attention.

The Algerian government, having experienced an exceptionally bloody terrorist campaign in the 1990s, rejected negotiations and went on the offensive, killing and capturing all of the terrorists. Dozens of hostages died during the battle. Later determination that some of the attack squad
were involved in the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four American diplomats, including the U.S. ambassador, further heightened concern about growth of this regional AQIM group.

Incident:
On January 16, 2013, at 5:00
A.M.
, at least 32 radical Islamists protesting Algerian support for the French incursion into Mali attacked the country's third largest natural gas pumping station and employee barracks in the south, a remote facility 1,000 miles away from the capital city, killing 2 people and taking at least 573 Algerian and 132 foreign hostages, including 41 Westerners. The facility employs 790 people, including 134 foreigners from 26 countries.

As Algerian security forces escorted Westerners to the Ain Menas Airport, the gunmen, dressed in fatigues and wearing turbans, arrived in three unmarked trucks and attacked the bus. Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal later said:

The gunmen ran off the security forces, seized Algerians and Westerners, and then sent separate teams to take over the gas production facility, an administration building, and the living quarters. An Algerian and a Briton were killed; two security guards, two base guards, and two Westerners were wounded. Many workers hid under beds and on rooftops; several Filipinos who refused to leave their rooms were beaten. Two Europeans were shot in the back, one while fleeing and one in the cafeteria. Many Algerian hostages were permitted to phone home. Algerian women were immediately released.

The terrorists, armed with AK-47s, rounded and tied up the Westerners, placing explosive vests on several. The terrorists announced that Muslims would not be harmed, but the Christians would be killed. They held the remaining Algerians in a separate location, refusing to release them in case the Algerian army killed the hostages and blamed the hostage-takers. The United Kingdom sent a rapid deployment team to Algiers to guard its embassy.

Algerian military forces surrounded the buildings where the hostages were held. Special Forces and the elite Special Intervention Group (GIS) disconnected mobile phone transmitters and scrambled satellite phone connections. Russian-made helicopters ringed the facility.

The gunmen released the Algerians, then made their demands, including an end to “brutal aggression on our people in Mali” and release from prison of their colleagues. The group told a Mauritanian news service it protested “blatant intervention of the French crusader forces in Mali”
and said the world was ignoring the Syrian people, who were “groaning under the pressure of the butcher” President Bashar al-Assad. The group complained that Algeria was allowing the French to use its airspace for operations in Mali. An Algerian spokesman said no response was given because Algeria does not negotiate. Leader Belmokhtar said he would trade the Americans for two Islamist terrorists jailed in the United States—Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and Aafia Siddiqui. The terrorists threatened to blow up the plant in the event of a rescue operation.

Late on January 16, 2013, the terrorists attempted to break out of the facility by putting explosives on the hostages and loading them into jeeps to go to Mali. Algerian helicopters fired on the jeeps, killing terrorist on-site leader Mohamed-Lamine Bouchneb. The 11 remaining terrorists moved their hostages into the gas-producing plant that they earlier had tried to set alight. According to Prime Minister Sellal, the dying words of the terrorist leader were “the order for all the foreigners to be killed, so there was a mass execution, many hostages were killed by a bullet to the head.” Army snipers then fired on the terrorists.

Belmokhtar released a video on January 17, 2013, saying “We are ready to negotiate with Western countries and the Algerian regime on the condition that they halt aggression and bombing against the Muslim people of Mali . . . and respect their desire to apply sharia on their territory.” They hoped to free 100 prisoners jailed in Algeria 15 years earlier. Algerian television broadcast African terrorist leader Abdel-Rahman al-Nigeri saying:

He took over the operation after the initial leader was killed. He was later recorded saying, “The Americans that are here, we will kill them. We will slaughter them.”

While the terrorists claimed to come from Mali, Algerian authorities said it was a multinational group that included terrorists from Algeria, Tunisia, Canada, Mali, Egypt, Libya, Niger, the Persian Gulf, and Mauritania. They variously called themselves Al-Mulathameen—variant alMouwakoune Bi-Dima (Those Who Sign with Blood), Battalion of Blood, the Masked Brigade, and the Brigade of the Masked Ones. AQIM also claimed credit.

The terrorists allowed hostages to talk to France 24 TV, to put more pressure on their government. A British hostage told
Al Jazeera
that the Algerian Army should withdraw to avoid casualties. “We are receiving care and good treatment from the kidnappers. The (Algerian) army did not withdraw and they are firing at the camp. . . . There are around 150 Algerian hostages. We say to everybody that negotiation is a sign of strength and will spare many loss of life.” An Irish hostage told
Al Jazeera
that French, American, Japanese, British, Irish, and Norwegian citizens were among
the hostages. “The situation is deteriorating. We have contacted the embassies and we call on the Algerian army to withdraw. . . . We are worried because of the continuation of the firing.” Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corporation were held.

French catering contractor Alexandre Berceaux barricaded himself in his room for 40 hours. He was freed by Algerian soldiers who also found British citizens hiding on the roof.

BP and Sonatrac, the Algerian national oil company, and Norway's Statoil jointly operate the field. Statoil said 17 of its employees—including 13 Norwegians—were in the area at the time of the attack. Five of them— four Norwegians and a Canadian resident—were safely evacuated to a military camp; two injured individuals received medical treatment.

Some of the Westerners blended in with the Algerians who escaped. Some of the hostages were blindfolded, gagged, and thrown into five jeeps. When a jeep crashed after taking fire from Algerian troops, Stephen McFaul, 36, an electrical engineer from Belfast, Northern Ireland, ran to freedom with explosives strapped around his neck. (McFaul had earlier hidden in a room with a colleague and phoned home.) It is believed that when later military rescuers targeted the jeeps, the other hostages in the jeeps died.

It was initially unclear what happened when the Algerians conducted their three rescue operations with ground troops supported by helicopter gunships. Initial reports form news outlets (Algeria's
Ennahar
TV,
Mauritanian ANI News,
Algeria's APS state media, and
Reuters
) and tallies by countries with citizens held hostage differed as to how many and who were dead, how many and who were feared dead, how many and who had escaped, and how many and who were alive and held hostage. The Algerians did not inform the Americans, British, or Japanese ahead of time when they raided the facility on January 17, 2013. The remaining 20 terrorists, hemmed in on all sides, demanded safe passage with the rest of their hostages. The rescue operation apparently freed the hostages who had been brought to the dorms, but the rest of the facility was still held by the terrorists, who wanted to drive the hostages to other countries.

The Algerian government announced on January 19, 2013, that it had conducted a final rescue mission that ended the siege, during which 23 hostages and 32 terrorists had died. The government said at least 685 Algerian workers and 107 foreigners were freed. During the final assault, 7 hostages and 11 terrorists died. An Algerian security official told local media that the terrorists had turned their guns on the hostages when they failed to destroy the facility, as well as during the final rescue operation. Algerian officials found 21 rifles, six machine guns, two 60-mm mortars, rockets, six 60-mm C5 missiles with launchers, two grenade launchers with eight rockets, Belgian-made antitank mines, and 10 grenades arranged into explosive belts. Operations leader Bouchneb purchased the weapons in Tripoli, Libya.

Government officials found 25 charred bodies at the facility after the final rescue operation. On January 21, 2013, the Algerian government said 38 hostages from 8 countries had died and another 5 hostages were still missing. At least 29 terrorists were killed, including their leader. An Algerian television station said five terrorists had been captured and three were still unaccounted for.

Algerian interrogation of the surviving terrorists and interviews with the freed hostages yielded details on the operation. The Algerian government announced that the terrorists organized the plot in Mali, then entered Algeria via their gathering place in Ghat in southern Libya. The terrorists had inside information about the facility from short-term contract workers for BP who served as drivers, cooks, and guards, providing information about the entrances and exits, the residence complex, the guard systems, and building details. The attackers knew how to shut off production at the site and knew of ongoing labor strife and plans for a strike by catering workers. They told the Algerian hostages, “We know you're oppressed; we've come here so that you can have your rights.”