{"id":6015,"date":"2013-01-19T11:21:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-19T11:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2013\/01\/escaped-algerian-hostage-says-captors-foreign\/"},"modified":"2013-01-19T11:21:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-19T11:21:00","slug":"escaped-algerian-hostage-says-captors-foreign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/01\/19\/escaped-algerian-hostage-says-captors-foreign\/","title":{"rendered":"Escaped Algerian hostage says captors \u2018foreign\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"91\">\n<p>IN AMENAS\u00a0\u00a0(AFP) \u2013 An Algerian man who escaped from Islamists holding foreign hostages at a gas plant in the Sahara desert told AFP on Saturday his captors spoke in different Arabic dialects and also in English.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw five inside the plant, but I don\u2019t know how many others were outside,\u201d said Iba El Haza, a driver at the BP gas plant near the Libyan border, of his Islamist captors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom their accents I understood one was Egyptian, one Tunisian, another Algerian and one was speaking English or a foreign language.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Haza escaped during a rescue attempt launched on Thursday by Algerian special forces which officials say killed 12 hostages and 18 of the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist captors.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cSignatories of Blood,\u201d a group led by veteran jihadist commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, says it still holds several foreigners including Belgians, Americans, one Japanese and a Briton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw two Filipinos (hostages), another who said he was American and two others who I don\u2019t know what their nationality was. They were close to us,\u201d Haza said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first (Algerian army) attack was around 9:00 am [0800GMT] on Thursday. We decided then to leave\u2026 We went straight to the army. We had broken the padlocks (on the door of the room they were held in) and we left,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that his captors were armed with AK-47s, machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades, and that they told him they were interested only in keeping the foreigners hostage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe terrorists said: \u2018You have nothing to do with this, you are Algerians and Muslims. We won\u2019t keep you, we only want the foreigners\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Algerian forces launched their rescue attempt on Thursday, a day after the kidnappers seized the plant to demand an end to French military action against Islamists in neighbouring Mali.<\/p>\n<p>Algiers was slammed internationally for the haste with which it launched the dramatic assault.<\/p>\n<p>An AFP correspondent said five coffins were taken to a hospital in nearby In Amenas on Saturday morning, where the wounded who escaped after the army\u2019s raid were being treated.<\/p>\n<p>Military helicopters were circling the gas plant, inside which the remaining hostages are holed up with their captors, according to a security source.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Comments are moderated. Please keep them clean and brief.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> IN AMENAS\u00a0\u00a0(AFP) \u2013 An Algerian man who escaped from Islamists holding foreign hostages at a gas plant in the Sahara desert told AFP on Saturday his captors spoke in different Arabic dialects and also in English. \u201cI saw five inside the plant, but I don\u2019t know how many others were outside,\u201d said Iba El Haza, a driver at the BP gas plant near the Libyan border, of his Islamist captors. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}