#MyJihad in Algeria: Jihadists were after "crusaders," not Algerians, non-Muslim hostages "were all tied with one suicide bomber watching them"

Al-Qaeda wanted to send the message that it could strike anywhere in the Sahara. This comes just after Obama said they were essentially already defeated.

"Kidnappers said were after ‘crusaders’ not Algerians: freed hostage," from Al Arabiya, January 19 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

Al-Qaeda-linked militants, who kidnapped hundreds of workers at a gas plant in the Algerian desert, said they were after “crusaders” and not Algerian nationals, one of the released hostages told Al Arabiya in an interview on Saturday.
The freed Algerian hostage also said that Algerians were treated better than foreigners as they were allowed to use their phones and were promised that they will be released shortly.

“We [Algerians] did what we wanted, they did not tell us to switch off our cellphones, or interrogated us. They told us to sit down and that they were not after Algerians but after what they called crusaders,” the former hostage said.

The Qaeda-linked militants, who were angry at French intervention in Mali, wanted to send a clear message: they could strike anywhere in the Sahara including terrorizing hundreds of foreigners from different backgrounds in Algeria.

“We saw the foreigners who were tied… we [Algerians] asked them that we wanted to leave, they [militants] told us to sit down a bit with them, maybe 1.5 hours till we are released.”

Al-Taher bin Shanab was leading the group who kidnapped the hostages.

According to the former captive, the group members called Shanab: “Emir Taha” or “Prince Taha;” a title commonly used by al-Qaeda members to denote to their superiors.

“This Emir Taha told us, we came here to die and to be martyrs, and that they wanted to talk to officials and generals that are ruling the country.”

According to freed captive, the militants were “happy” with their operation, as they held “13 foreigners hailing from different backgrounds such as Norway, U.S. and Britain. They were all tied with one suicide bomber watching them.”

Veteran commander from Niger

Meanwhile, according to Reuters, the field commander of the Islamist group that attacked the gas plant is a veteran fighter from Niger and was called Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, Mauritanian news agencies reported.

Nigeri is said to be close to the overall commander of the kidnappers, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria’s civil war of the 1990s who now has links with al Qaeda in the region.

Belmokhtar appears not to have been present during the raid, which led to the deaths of an unspecified number of hostages. More than 20 foreigners were still missing or being held captive in the industrial gas plant on Saturday.

Nigeri was reported to be holed up in the plant near the town of In Amenas and holding seven hostages, according to the Mauritanian reports carried by the SITE monitoring service.

Another of the group’s leaders, Abu al-Bara’a al-Jaza’iri, had been killed at the gas field’s residential complex, which has been retaken by the Algerian army, according to the ANI news agency.

Mauritanian news agencies have maintained contacts with Islamist groups in the region.

Nigeri joined the hardline Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in 2005 and participated in several of its “major” missions in Mali, Mauritania and Niger, including a June 2005 attack on a barracks in Mauritania where 17 soldiers were killed, the reports said....

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3 Comments

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Meryl Petkoff | January 19, 2013 7:39 PM | Reply

"Jihadists were after "crusaders"--

Typical pedohammedan psychological projection http://bit.ly/VdRAWk http://bit.ly/XpsQVw

Wakingwest | January 19, 2013 7:39 PM | Reply

Are Al-Qaeda linked?

It seems that we are directed to link the continuing murder of Americans and Westerners to all sorts of links but never to where the instructions these mohammedan zombies derive form their commonly linked terror manual written a very time long ago.
The only link which realy matters to those of us in the West who have not forgoten the thousands of Americans murdered by muslims and who can see the inescapable conflagration with that unmentionable “religion" is the islam link.

There’s your link , islam, islam and islam.

Wakingwest | January 19, 2013 8:17 PM | Reply

Resubmitted for your approval, as Ole Rod Sterling liked to say:

It seems that we are directed to link the continuing murder of Americans and Westerners to all sorts of links but never to where these mohammedan zombies derive their instructions, you know, that terror manual written a very time long ago.
The only link which should really matters to those of us in the West who have not forgotten the thousands of Americans murdered by muslims and who can see the inescapable conflagration coming with that unmentionable “religion" is the islam link.

There’s your link , islam, islam and islam.

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