'We have come to exterminate the Crusaders' - Algerian hostage crisis background

Al Jazeera news video.

"WE HAVE come to exterminate the Crusaders", said a freed Algerian worker at the In Amenas gas field. He described on Al Jazeera television how the the Islamic jihadists searched the Sahara desert installation looking for foreign workers and planned to blow up the entire plant.

The hostage crisis had a deadly end at the weekend with the second and final assault by Algerian special forces but the bloody saga has cast a shadow over the country’s energy sector, according to the latest report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The preliminary death toll from the four-day siege was 23 hostages and 32 captors with five of the militants being captured. The army freed 685 Algerian workers and 107 foreigners.

France24.com has taken a closer look with Sébastian Seibt reporting:

The hostage incident has indeed caused a halt in activity at the site, where both gas and 50,000 barrels a day of liquid hydrocarbons similar to crude oil are produced.

Compared to the 1.18 million barrels of crude oil produced daily by Algeria, the production at the gas field seems relatively insignificant.

“It can create a bit of volatility, but one attack in itself is not going to lead to a long-term price hike,” said Céline Antonin, an economist specialising in oil industries at the French Economic Observatory.

The risk is that the terrorists’ “ability to strike so boldly is likely to spook the Western oil operators who run facilities across the region”, according to British weekly magazine The Economist. If oil operators get jittery, The Economist assessed, speculation could result in higher prices.
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Stop press:  At least 37 hostages died in the terrorist seizure of, and ensuing special forces assault on, a natural gas plant in Algeria, says the country's prime minister. Five other hostages are missing from the In Amenas complex and could be dead, Prime Minister Abdul Malek Sallal said. Before Sallal's statement on Monday, other countries and companies that employed foreign workers at the sprawling plant had confirmed a total of 29 hostage deaths. - CNN

• Count of hostage deaths rises
• Algeria claims capture of five hostage-takers
• Algerian reaction to raid rooted in history
• Is Algeria immune to the 'Arab Spring'?
  Will the Algerian hostage crisis affect the oil industry?
• Making sense of Mali's armed groups

Syria a graveyard for news workers amid conflict

A BELATED word of congratulations to Mazen Darwish, head of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), and the Afghan daily 8Sobh, who were jointly awarded the 2012 Press Freedom Prize by Reporters sans frontières, Le Monde and TV5Monde.

Although there were many outstanding nominees, the awards jury paid tribute to Darwish, who “displayed extraordinary courage” in the face of danger and paid with his freedom.

RSF continues to demand his release by Syrian authorities.

Mazen Darwish ... held incommunicado
by Syrian authorities. Photo: AI

Darwish was arrested by Syrian Air Force intelligence agents on February 16 during a raid on the SCM office. He has been held incommunicado ever since.

At the time of his arrest, he was a key source of information when most foreign journalists were barred.

He has also reported to have been badly tortured and his health is suffering because of lack of treatment for a medical condition.

Syrian officials have refused to disclose his whereabouts or bring him before a judge.

Winner of the media freedom category, Afghanistan's 8Sobh (8 am), was described by the award jury as “living evidence that freely reported quality journalism can develop in the most difficult corners of the planet”.

Noting the horrendous global journalist death toll during 2012 - reported by RSF as 88 , The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade wrote on his blog:

At least 17 journalists, 44 citizen journalists and four media assistants killed in 2012 during the conflict between Bashar Al-Assad's government and various rebel groups.
Syria has hit news providers hard because they are the unwanted witnesses of atrocities being committed by the regime and armed opposition groups.

Due to the polarisation of information sources, news manipulation, propaganda, technical constraints and the extreme violence to which journalists and citizen journalists are exposed, anyone trying to gather or disseminate news and information in Syria needs a real sense of vocation.

Of growing concern is the number of Al Qaeda factions reportedly involved in the rebel forces (as happened in the Libyan version of the so-called “Arab Spring”). This is exposed in the above video.

In an attack on a Sahara desert gas plant by Al Qaeda and the killing of hostages in a shoot-out with Algerian troops on January 16, it was reported: "Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its northern oasis towns last year."

• The Al Qaeda Executive