Lesson learned. “Hostages Dead in Bloody Climax to Siege in Algeria,” by Adam Nossiter for the New York Times, January 19:
BAMAKO, 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….
One Algerian who managed to escape told France 24 television late Friday night that the kidnappers said, “We”ve come in the name of Islam, to teach the Americans what Islam is.” The haggard-looking man, interviewed at the airport in Algiers, said the kidnappers then immediately executed five hostages….