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Algeria: 32 militants, 23 hostages killed as standoff ends

11 Comments
By PAUL SCHEMM and KARIM KEBIR

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11 Comments
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Algeria is Algeria, they have their OWN way of dealing with terrorists! If you do not want to be blown away by Al Qaeda or by the trigger happy Algerian army, well do not go and work in Algeria, right??

1 ( +2 / -1 )

@KabukiLover

These terrorists in AQMI used to be armed with heavy "gas tanks" but since democracy was brought forth to Libya, Iraq etc, guess what? They have heavy assault weapons, rocket launchers, night vision googles... If the west would kindly stop to overthrow stable regimes to put in place questionable extremist regime, that would already maybe prevent these kind of bloodsheds... For Algeria, one westerner life and an algerian life are equal, so when I read they managed to rescue 685people but lost 30, that sounds like a reasonable job. Once terrorists take their hostages on jeep and disperse them to soudan, somalia, libya, mali etc, do seriously believe you will see them back alive??? Also, I hear about how algerian military sucked vs. SAS or french RAID, for the record just last week France failed to rescue Denis Alex and if you want to talk about sloppy work, how many people got out of the Munich hostage situation alive??

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No negotiations with terrrorists, if you do and give in to them the latter get bolder all the time. The loss of civilian life is horrible and more pressure should be applied to nations and interest groups that arm, directly or indirectly, misguided zealots.

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All very well for the British prime minister to make such a statement but when it comes to actually doing something he wont take on the Saudis or Iran who finance the Islamofascists or the terrorists themselves if they are Hamas, PLO, Fatah or Hezbolah. He won't take on the Moslem Brotherhood who now run Egypt and Libya and soon to run Syria. He wont even stop the British Moslems from their hate speeches, anti-semitism, anti-Israelism or their subjugation of their women.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

As the terrorists lost all 32 of their members, guess their leaders outside the country will have second thoughts about trying such a thing again in Algeria. As for those who work in such hostile envronments in foreign countries, guess their bosses will have to get better security to make sure they are safe.

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What a disaster.

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edojinJAN. 20, 2013 - 01:24PM JST As the terrorists lost all 32 of their members, guess their leaders outside the country will have second thoughts about trying such a thing again in Algeria.

I doubt it. These terrorists regard their lives as expendable for the cause. That's why they are called 'extremists'. They aren't fighting for gain, only for their 'cause'.

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The article is careful to call them Islamists/extremists/captors/kidnappers/militants, and their prisoners, hostages.

The word terrorist is only used in quotations, ie from other people's mouths.

Al Jazeera calls them 'fighters' and their prisoners 'captives', I notice.

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Worst is yet to come, according to an Algerian newspaper -Liberte- 60 heavily armed pick-up have been spotted rushing to the Algerian borderline from Ghadamis on Saturday night, a rescue operation for their terrorists fellow according to the source. It is also said that the terrorist intended to bring some hostages in...Lybia. Spreading out fast to other regions it seems.

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In a bloody finale, Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the Sahara desert on Saturday to end a standoff with Islamist extremists that left at least 23 hostages dead and killed all 32 militants involved, the Algerian government said.

It seems like killing the terrorists was the ultimate goal and not saving the hostages. It's a bit like a surgeon triumphantly declaring that he's successfully removed the tumor but unfortunately the patient has died.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

This a case of the cure being worse than the disease. What was the Algerian government thinking when they launched this course of action. I agree with the above poster that the Algerian government was more interested in killing the kidnappers rather than saving the hostages. So much for the NRA's remark that the only answer to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The Algerian government in the end is as criminally responsible for the death of the hostages as the kidnappers.

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