BAMAKO, Mali — A day after the four-day hostage crisis in the Sahara reached a bloody conclusion, government leaders around the world struggled on Sunday to grasp what precisely had happened as Britain called for a “global response” lasting “years, even decades” to counter the deep-rooted presence of Islamist militants in North Africa.
Louafi Larbi/Reuters
A freed Norwegian hostage was escorted to a police station in the town of In Amenas on Saturday, near the gas field complex.
The confrontation at a remote gas field taken over by militants ended Saturday as the Algerian Army carried out a final assault, killing most of the remaining kidnappers and raising the total of hostages killed to at least 23, Algerian officials said.
A senior Algerian official was quoted on Sunday as saying that figure “may be revised upward.”
In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron also revised earlier estimates of fatalities, saying on Sunday that three British nationals were killed and three more were believed to have died along with one resident of Britain.
On Saturday, the government said five Britons and one British resident had died or were unaccounted for after the final rescue attempt.
In a televised address from his official country retreat on Sunday, Mr. Cameron said: “We have had successes in recent years in reducing the threat from some parts of the world, but the threat has grown particularly in North Africa.”
“This is a global threat and it will require a global response. It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months. It requires a response that is patient and painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve and that is what we will deliver over these coming years,” he said.
He added: “What we face is an extremist, Islamist, Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group. Just as we had to deal with that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan so the world needs to come together to deal with this threat in North Africa.”
The group “wants to destroy our way of life, it believes in killing as many people as it can. We need to work with others to defeat the terrorists and to close down the ungoverned spaces where they thrive with all the means that we have,” he said, reprising a theme he has struck with increasing passion as the attack in Algeria unfolded.
The details of the desert standoff and the final battle for the plant remained murky — as did information about which hostages died and how — with even the White House suggesting late Saturday that it was unclear what had happened. In a brief statement President Obama said his administration would “remain in close touch with the government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of what took place.”
The British defense minister, Philip Hammond, called the loss of life “appalling and unacceptable” after reports that up to seven hostages were killed in the final hours of the hostage crisis, and he said that the leaders of the attack would be tracked down. The Algerian government said that 32 militants had been killed since Wednesday, although it cautioned that its 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 that there were several summary executions and that some workers had died in the military’s initial rescue attempt.
On Saturday, Algerian officials 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.
Most of the hundreds of workers at the plant, who come from about 25 countries, appear to have escaped sometime during the four days.
The Algerian government has been relatively silent since the start of the crisis, releasing few details. The government faced withering international criticism for rushing ahead with its first assault on the militants on Thursday even as governments whose citizens were trapped inside the plant pleaded for more time, fearing that rescue attempts might lead to workers dying. The Algerians responded by saying they had a better understanding of how to handle militants after fighting Islamist insurgents for years.
Mr. Cameron said on Sunday:“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.”
Hostages Dead in Bloody Climax to Siege in Algeria
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Hostages Dead in Bloody Climax to Siege in Algeria
