IMHO: I agree with not negotiating with terrorists because of all the stated reasons. This policy does put current hostages in danger, but to negotiate (reward) WILL lead to more terrorist organizations endangering even more American or other Western citizens.
SUMMARY: In “We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages and Ransom,” author Joel Simon analyzes hostage situations involving Westerners taken from Syria. One example: American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, who were executed. Judy Woodruff sits down with Foley's mother, Diane Foley, and author Simon to discuss why the U.S. might need to reconsider its negotiation policies.
SUMMARY: In January, Iran released American hostages in a development coinciding with a U.S. payout of $400 million -- money that had been owed for decades. The Obama administration previously denied a connection between the two events, but on Friday, the State Department modified its response, saying the money was used as “leverage.” Judy Woodruff talks to department spokesman Adm. John Kirby for more.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):The January release of American prisoners from Iran was accompanied by a $400 million payment, money the Islamic republic had been owed for decades from a weapons sale that was never completed between the United States and Iran because of the revolution there. The Obama administration announced the payment at the time.
But, lately, critics have alleged that the payment's proximity to the release amounted to a ransom, a charge the administration denies. But, yesterday, the State Department modified its response, saying the millions of dollars were used as — quote — “leverage” amid the negotiations over the prisoners.
Earlier today, I spoke with the State Department's top spokesman, Adm. John Kirby.
Adm. John Kirby, welcome.
You have said that the cash payment that went to the Iranian government was intended as leverage to gain the release of these American prisoners. How is that different from paying ransom?
JOHN KIRBY, State Department Spokesman: Well, I didn't say that it was used — that it was a leverage payment.
Remember, this was Iranian money that they had coming to them through The Hague tribunal, and it was money that had been frozen way back in 1979. So it was their money and they were going to get it anyway.
These parallel tracks were moving forward, and they began to converge. In fact, we took advantage of the convergence in a short 24-hour period to kind of wrap it all up together.
Now, what I said is, though, while there is no connection between the $400 million and the return of our American citizens, we did, however, in those endgame hours, hold back that payment until we knew that our Americans were safe and sound and on their way out of Iran, because, in the very last few hours, Iran was playing a few games here on us.
And we weren't quite sure that the release was going to happen. And we were worried about Iran reneging on that very lengthy negotiation process that we put in place to bring them home.
NOTE: I remember when the payment was mad AND that it had nothing to do with the hostages. It was NOT secret, just not highly publicized. This is more the case of the media being asleep at the time.
Excerpt
SUMMARY: The Wall Street Journal revealed this week that in January, the Obama administration secretly airlifted $400 million in cash to Iran. The money was owed as part of a failed arms deal prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but payment coincided with the release of four Americans held in Tehran. Hari Sreenivasan speaks with Jay Solomon, the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the story.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): The Iran nuclear deal has been a major issue in this year's presidential election. Detractors blame Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration for caving to Iranian demands, while receiving little in return.
Now revelations about U.S. payments to the Iranian government add a new wrinkle to those critiques.
Hari Sreenivasan has more.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): This week, The Wall Street Journal broke news that the Obama administration secretly airlifted $400 million in cash to Iran. The money was owed as part of a failed arms deal prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But the payment coincided within the release of four Americans imprisoned in Tehran, raising questions about cash for prisoners.
Donald Trump criticized the move today at his rally in Portland, Maine.
DONALD TRUMP (R), Presidential Nominee: Four hundred million in cash. It's being flown in an airplane to Iran. I wonder where that money really goes, by the way. Right? I wonder where it really goes.
Well, it went to either in their pockets, which I actually think more so, or toward terrorism, probably a combination of both.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Late this afternoon, President Obama pushed back and defended the U.S. decision to send the cash to Iran. He spoke at the Pentagon.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:We announced these payments in January, many months ago. It wasn't a secret. We announced them to all of you.
Iran had pressed a claim before an international tribunal about them recovering money of theirs that we had frozen that, as a consequence of its working its way through the international tribunal, it was the assessment of our lawyers that we were now at a point where there was significant litigation risk, and we could end up costing ourselves billions of dollars. It was their advice and suggestion that we settle.
After spending 444 days in captivity, and more than 30 years seeking restitution, the Americans taken hostage at the United States Embassy in Tehran in 1979 have finally won compensation.
Buried in the huge spending bill signed into law last Friday are provisions that would give each of the 53 hostages or their estates up to $4.4 million. Victims of other state-sponsored terrorist attacks such as the 1998 American Embassy bombings in East Africa would also be eligible for benefits under the law.
“I had to pull over to the side of the road, and I basically cried,” said Rodney V. Sickmann, who was a Marine sergeant working as a guard at the embassy in Tehran when he was seized along with the other Americans by a mob that overran the compound on Nov. 4, 1979. “It has been 36 years, one month, 14 days, obviously, until President Obama signed the actual bill, until Iran was held accountable,” he said.
The law now stands to bring closure to an episode that riveted the nation and ruptured America’s ties with Iran. The very agreement that won the hostages’ release in 1981 barred them from seeking restitution. Their legal claims were repeatedly blocked in the courts, including an appeal denied by the Supreme Court. Congress tried but failed to pass laws granting them relief.
But this year, vindication came in a decision that forced the Paris-based bank BNP Paribas to pay a $9 billion penalty for violating sanctions against Iran, Sudan and Cuba. Some of that money was suddenly available for victims of state-sponsored terrorism. Congress was also motivated by many members’ anger over the Iran nuclear accord.
Some of the hostages were subject to physical and psychological torture during their long ordeal, and many regarded the thaw as frustrating and premature.
Like most of the hostages, Mr. Sickmann learned of the imminent legislation in a conference call with their main lawyer, V. Thomas Lankford, on Dec. 16.
“It became clear that we were sort of inextricably linked to the nuclear negotiations,” Mr. Lankford said in an interview. “Those negotiations resulted in an understanding that an inevitable next step in securing a relationship was to address the reason for the rupture, which was our kidnapping and torture.”
“As valuable as stopping the spread of nuclear arms is,” he added, “it’s equally important to establish the precedent that in one way, shape, form or another, a state sponsor of terrorism will not be permitted to walk away.”
It is not clear whether all the former hostages or their families will receive full payments. In large measure that is because the $4.4 million total authorized by Congress depends on the outcome of efforts to collect on judgments won in earlier court rulings involving victims of terrorist attacks, as well as on the number of victims who file claims.
The law authorizes payments of up to $10,000 per day of captivity for each of the 53 hostages, 37 of whom are still alive. Fifty-two hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981; a 53rd hostage had been released earlier because of illness. Spouses and children are authorized to receive a lump payment of as much as $600,000.
Of the $9 billion penalty paid by BNP Paribas, about $1 billion will be put into a compensation fund for victims of terrorism, with more money and assets potentially added as a result of continuing litigation. An additional $2.8 billion will aid victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and their family members.
Initial payments are to be disbursed within one year, according to a formula that will be overseen by a special master appointed by the Justice Department and that imposes limits on payments to victims who have won judgments in excess of $20 million. The initial payments are expected to fall well short of the maximum.
Several of the surviving hostages and their families said that reparations were long overdue. Many said they felt their ordeal had been long forgotten by the general public until the 2012 movie “Argo,” directed by Ben Affleck, which focused on six people who managed to escape from the besieged embassy and take refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador, Ken Taylor.
Some of the hostages also said the compensation award would serve as a reminder of the perils still faced by United States diplomatic personnel working in dangerous locations overseas, such as the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in 2012.
For years, the hostages pushed for relief from Congress.
Mr. Roeder called the experience “the epitome of the roller coaster ride.” He added, “We were sent into harm’s way by our government and then nobody seemed to want to do anything about it.”
Over the years, the former hostages had numerous champions in Congress. In recent years, some of their strongest advocates included the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada; Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia; Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut; Representative Sean Duffy, Republican of Wisconsin; and Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia. All had pushed for stand-alone legislation to compensate the ex-hostages.
In a statement, Mr. Reid said that the action by Congress was long overdue. “These Americans, held hostage for 444 days in 1979, deserved to finally be compensated for the horrors that they and their families have survived,” he said.
Mr. Sickmann said that he would have preferred that Iran pay compensation directly, as Libya did for victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, but that he did not expect an apology from Iran. “I don’t believe that they will ever, ever apologize,” he said. “They don’t believe that they did anything wrong.”
Some former hostages and their family members had expressed frustration at the Justice and State Departments for blocking efforts over the years to get compensation. In a sense, the spending bill represents Congress’s taking control of the BNP Paribas money back from the Justice Department.
SUMMARY: As the number of American hostage deaths have surged in the past year, some families have spoken out about being threatened with prosecution for considering paying ransom and feeling stonewalled by the government. Judy Woodruff reports on the White House’s efforts today to change the policy for families.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): After coming under fire over the handling of American hostage cases abroad, President Obama today announced a change in policy.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We’re not going to abandon you. We will stand by you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The President’s pledge to hostage families follows a surge in deaths in the past 12 months. Six Americans have died in captivity in Syria, Yemen and Pakistan since last summer. Three of them were beheaded by Islamic State militants in Syria.
Some of the families say they were threatened with prosecution if they had tried to pay ransoms, but Mr. Obama promised today that will change.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The last thing that we should ever do is to add to a family’s pain with threats like that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The U.S. government will maintain its policy against official concessions to terror groups, although, Washington did negotiate last year’s release of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan. He had been held five years by the Taliban. And many European countries routinely pay ransoms for captives.
DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, Foundation for Defense of Democracies: This is a huge mistake.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But some, like Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, argue the practice only encourages hostage-taking.
DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: These organizations make hundreds of millions of dollars, when you look at the sum total of them, from hostages. They will nab a person, they will demand a payment, and then it will strengthen their military capacity and allow them to take further hostages. This is an enormous problem.
SUMMARY: The White House cleared the path for the families of hostages to be able to pay ransom, and offered other changes for how the government handles hostage cases. Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner gets reaction from Michael Scott Moore, a former hostage who was held in Somalia.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the accidental drone deaths of two hostages in Pakistan, questions about the Clinton Foundation and potential conflicts of interest, plus which Republican 2016 contenders are gaining traction.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): So, the story we started out with tonight, David, that broke yesterday about two hostages killed in a drone strike in Pakistan, all sorts of second-guessing, third-guessing about this. Does the Obama administration need to rethink or get rid of this drone strike policy?
DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: I don’t think they should rethink it because of this.
When you have a drone policy, when you go to war, friendly-fire and accidents and tragedies are just endemic in the nature of the fog of war. In World War II, there was something called the Allerona train bombing, where American bombers accidentally killed 400 American POWs and British and South African POWs that were in Nazi control.
It was an accident. These sorts of things happen in these sorts of circumstances. And so the fact that two people were tragic — two innocents were tragically killed is what we should have expected, I think, and what we did expect. War is never perfect.
So, you know, I don’t think it should be cause for us to reevaluate. I think the fundamental issue that is worth reevaluating all the time is the equation between how we’re setting back al-Qaida or are we inciting others to join ISIS? And that’s a legitimate issue. I don’t know the answer to it. But it seems like that’s the big issue here.
The fact that a tragedy — a completely foreseeable tragedy happened that’s endemic in the nature of this sort of business happened doesn’t seem to me a cause to rethink.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Time to reevaluate, rethink?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: I don’t think we have ever evaluated a thought about drones, quite frankly, Judy.
This is a perfect weapon for a 12-year war without any coherent explanation and without any conclusion to it. It’s a war, as James — General James Mattis, the former CENTCOM commander, pointed out recently in a speech, the only war since the American Revolution we have fought without a draft and we have fought it with tax cuts.
So, this is a great weapon because it removes the war. The war has been fought only by 1 percent of Americans, suffered only by 1 percent of Americans. And this takes all the carnage and all the killing. Is it effective, is it surgical, is it precise? By all those definitions, it’s a rather remarkable device.
But it spares us from ever seeing dead people, from ever seeing the wailing of the orphan, of the widow. And I think there’s — in a responsible democracy, there has to be debate and there has to be accountability, and there hasn’t been.
The president has accepted responsibility, as he should. But he says there’s going to be an investigation. We don’t know what it’s about. And I think there are serious questions about whether, in fact, in the — with hundreds of civilian deaths acknowledged over the use of drones, that whether in fact it has been an incredible recruitment device for ISIS and for al-Qaida.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
Well, I would say, what are their alternatives? It seems to me there are four alternatives. One, we don’t do anything, and we allow al-Qaida to have safe haven in Pakistan and Afghanistan. That seems to me hardly a great option. The second is, we have bombing campaigns with conventional bombs. That seems to me much messier.
The third is, we send in special forces. And this isn’t Hollywood. You are not going to send in six people. You’re going to send in hundreds of people. And they’re scared, and they’re doing massive assaults. It seems to me you’re going to have more casualties. Or drones. It seems to me, of these horrible options, drones is the least bad option.
MARK SHIELDS: I just — I really do think that this comes back to we have not had a debate about what we are doing there and what we ought to be doing.
If there is a commitment, a true commitment on the part of the nation, it isn’t something that’s just done like a video game. It is something that does, should involve the American people, not only in the debate, but in some sense of commitment as to what we’re about.
There has been no debate on this war. It’s just been turning it over to the President. And I think liberals have to acknowledge that, under a liberal Democratic President, that the number of drone attacks has increased dramatically. And we have become reliant upon it and we have resorted to it. It’s become the default means of United States military engagement in a very, very difficult area.
SUMMARY: A new drug has a 90 to 100 percent chance of curing the Hepatitis-C virus, but costs tens of thousands of dollars for a course of treatment. The announcement by the manufacturer that it earned more than $2 billion in the year’s first quarter raises the question, who should pay when drugs are highly effective, but extremely expensive? Hari Sreenivasan reports on the profits, coverage and costs.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): ....Who should pay when drugs are very effective, but extremely expensive?
That’s an important question for the U.S. health care system as new treatments come along, and it’s a matter of real concern over a new drug that has a 90 percent to 100 percent chance of curing the Hepatitis-C virus. Its manufacturer announced record sales yesterday of more than $2 billion in just the first quarter of the year.
Profits, coverage and costs are all at issue, as Hari Sreenivasan reports.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Kim Bossley knows how fragile life can be. In 2005, Bossley was diagnosed with Hepatitis-C, a blood-borne virus that can destroy the body’s liver.
KIM BOSSLEY: I went from stage one to stage four, decomposed liver, very quickly.
HARI SREENIVASAN: News of her rapidly declining health was devastating for the 46-year-old mother of two.
KIM BOSSLEY: You fall into a depression when you’re diagnosed with Hep-C. Your own mortality rate hits you.
DR. GREGORY T. EVERSON, University of Colorado Hospital: That’s a pretty good response.
HARI SREENIVASAN: This fall, after nine years of battling the virus, Kim Bossley was accepted into a treatment trial with a new drug called Sovaldi.
DR. GREGORY T. EVERSON: So, Kim, we will check your labs here.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Almost immediately after taking Sovaldi, the Hepatitis-C virus disappeared.
SUMMARY: Both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., expressed optimism that a deal on the shutdown would be reached by the end of the week. However, it remained unclear how House Republicans would receive any Senate resolution. Congressional correspondent Kwame Holman reports.
SUMMARY: Senate leaders showed hope that they might be headed towards an end to the government shutdown, while House remains uneasy about the path forward. Robert Costa of the National Review joins Gwen Ifill to discuss why a short-term deal may be necessary and what concessions both sides may make to resolve the damaging impasse.
SUMMARY: From local economies dependent on defense spending to tourist hot spots reeling from closures, communities across the nation are feeling the pinch of the government shutdown. Judy Woodruff gets perspective from Cathy Lewis of WHRV in Hampton Roads, Va., Karen Kasler of Ohio Public Radio and Scott Shafer of KQED in San Francisco.
SUMMARY: As lawmakers show signs of progress towards a deal to end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, how are global markets responding? Ray Suarez gets analysis from Zanny Min-ton Beddoes of The Economist on the effects that repeated political standoffs over may have on U.S. financial credibility.
SUMMARY: President Barack Obama called leaders of the House and Senate to the White House to discuss the stalemate keeping the government shutdown. House GOP members forged ahead with various bills to re-open parts of the government, but Democrats dismissed that approach. Congressional correspondent Kwame Holman reports.
SUMMARY: After day two of the government shutdown, some industries, like tourism, have already taken a hit. How might the effects spill over into other sectors of the economy and the markets? Judy Woodruff looks to Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial and Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics for analysis and predictions. ---- DIANE SWONK, Mesirow Financial Holdings, Inc.: (on shutdown) And, yes, we also see these workers, census workers are all across the country; 85 percent of federal workers workout side of Washington, D.C., so as bad as it is in Washington, these are workers that vote all across the country, which, believe me it's having an impact, like I mentioned, the 4,000 workers in Kentucky. We have got workers here in Illinois that clearly aren't working at this stage of the game. The roads are not as clogged and all the retailers that get the fallout.
But also the auto industry is very concerned. I have gotten several calls from Detroit already, concerned about the uncertainty created by this, people not knowing what this means. And as the events continue to fall out as we approach the debt ceiling as well, that can really rock financial markets and that causes hesitation. Hesitation in an economy that's already weak is our greatest enemy.
When consumers are uncertain, they don't buy big-ticket items or luxury items. They don't spend on that extra meal out or going out to the movies. On the flip side of it, we also see more importantly businesses not willing to pull the trigger and hire, which is something that Mark was talking about. We have already seen the largest hiring in the sort of leisure and hospitality industries, but you are not going to see much of that at all. That pullback right as we enter into the holiday season I think is really critical. ---- MARK ZANDI, Moody's Analytics: Well, it's everybody then, because if we hit the debt limit, what that means is that the Treasury can only pay the bills for which it has enough cash. So it won't have enough cash to pay all the bills and there are a lot of bills.
Now, they're going to make their payments to the debt holders, the people who own the Treasury bonds. But that's going to leave less for everyone else. And so that means Medicare-Medicaid recipients, if they -- if we don't settle this by November 1, it means Social Security recipients won't get their check on time.
A French hostage has been executed in Mali, a man claiming to be a spokesman for al-Qaeda in North Africa has told Mauritania's ANI news agency.
A French foreign office spokesman said on Tuesday that Paris was trying to verify the report of the killing of Philippe Verdon, who was kidnapped in November 2011, adding that "we don't know at the moment" whether it was reliable.
The private Mauritanian news agency reported that someone calling himself Al-Qairawani and claiming to be a spokesman for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group told them that the "spy" Verdon had been executed "on March 10 in response to France's intervention in Northern Mali".
"The French President (Francois) Hollande is responsible for the lives of the other French hostages," he warned.
In all 15 French nationals, including Verdon, are being held captive in Africa, with AQIM claiming responsibility for six of the kidnappings.
Refusal to pay ransom
Verdon was seized on the night of November 24, 2011 along with Serge Lazarevic. According to their families the two men had been on a business trip and were kidnapped from their hotel in Hombori, northeast Mali.
The families denied that the two men were mercenaries or secret service agents.
AQIM swiftly claimed responsibility for the kidnappings and in August last year a video showing Verdon describing the "difficult living conditions" was released on a Mauritanian website.
The hostages' families have in recent weeks expressed growing fears for their loved ones in the light of France's military actions in Mali.
Earlier Tuesday, Verdon's father Jean-Pierre Verdon complained that the families were hearing nothing from the French authorities.
"We are in a total fog and it is impossible to live this way," he told RTL radio. "We have no information."
Asked about France's refusal to pay ransoms to kidnappers, Verdon senior replied that the families had no say in such "decisions of state".
Paris deployed forces in Mali on January 11 to help stop al-Qaeda linked fighters who had controlled the north of the country since April 2012 from moving southward and threatening the capital Bamako.
Pockets of resistance
France now has more than 4,000 troops on the ground in Mali, of whom about 1,200 are currently deployed in the northeast, carrying out operations after driving out most of the rebels from the area.
There are still pockets of resistance in areas such as Gao, which have witnessed stray attacks and suicide bombings since the rebels fled.
The French troops in the region are backed up by African forces. Soldiers from Chad, whose experience and training has made them key in the French-led offensive, have also suffered casualties with at least 26 deaths.
On Tuesday the French army announced that 15 rebel fighters had been killed in recent days in the northern Mali region of Gao, with the seizure of a large cache of arms and ammunition.
The AQIM source cited by the Mauritanian news agency refused to confirm reports that top rebels, Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Abdelhamid Abou Zeid had been killed in Mali earlier this month.
France has been carrying out DNA tests to determine whether the rebel leaders are among those killed in recent fighting in Mali.
About 60 foreign hostages are still unaccounted for three days into a bloody siege with Islamic militants at a gas plant deep in the Sahara, Algeria's state news service said Friday.
The militants, meanwhile, offered to trade two American hostages for terror figures jailed in the United States, according to a statement received by a Mauritanian news site that often reports news from North African extremists.
It was the latest surprising development in a hostage drama that began Wednesday when militants seized hundreds of workers from 10 nations at Algeria's remote Ain Amenas natural gas plant. Algerian forces retaliated Thursday by storming the plant in an attempted rescue operation that killed at least four hostages and left leaders around the world expressing strong concerns about the hostages' safety.
Algerian special forces resumed negotiating Friday with the militants holed up in the refinery, according to the Algerian news service, which cited a security source.
The report said "more than half of the 132 hostages" had been freed in the first two days, but it could not account for the remainder, saying some could be hidden throughout the sprawling desert site.
Militants on Friday offered to trade two American hostages for two prominent terror figures jailed in the United States: the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a Pakistani scientist convicted of shooting at two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
The offer, according to a Mauritanian news site that frequently broadcasts dispatches from groups linked to al-Qaida, came from Moktar Belmoktar, an extremist commander based in Mali who apparently masterminded the operation.
Algeria's government has kept a tight grip on information, but it was clear that the militant assault that began Wednesday with an attempted bus hijacking has killed at least six people from the plant - and perhaps many more.
Workers kidnapped by the militants came from around the world - Americans, Britons, French, Norwegians, Romanians, Malaysians, Japanese, Algerians. Leaders on Friday expressed strong concerns about how Algeria was handing the situation and its apparent reluctance to communicate.
British Prime Minister David Cameron went before the House of Commons on Friday to provide an update, seeming frustrated that Britain was not told about the military operation despite having "urged we be consulted."
Terrorized hostages from Ireland and Norway trickled out of the Ain Amenas plant, 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) south of Algiers, the capital. BP, which jointly operates the plant, said it had begun to evacuate employees from Algeria.
"This is a large and complex site and they are still pursuing terrorists and possibly some of the hostages," Cameron said. He told lawmakers the situation remained fluid and dangerous, saying "part of the threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, a threat still remains in another part."
Algeria's army-dominated government, hardened by decades of fighting Islamist militants, shrugged aside foreign offers of help and drove ahead alone.
The U.S. government sent an unarmed surveillance drone to the BP-operated site, near the border with Libya, but it could do little more than watch Thursday's military intervention. British intelligence and security officials were on the ground in Algeria's capital but were not at the installation, said a British official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
A U.S. official said while some Americans escaped, other Americans were either still held or unaccounted for.
El Mokhtar Ould Sidi, editor of the Mauritanian news site ANI, said several calls on Thursday came from the kidnappers themselves giving their demands and describing the situation.
"They were clearly in a situation of war, the spokesman who contacted us was giving orders to his colleagues and you could hear the sounds of war in the background.... He threatened to kill all the hostages if the Algerian forces tried to liberate them," he said.
With the hostage drama entering its second day Thursday, Algerian security forces moved in, first with helicopter fire and then special forces, according to diplomats, a website close to the militants, and an Algerian security official. The government said it was forced to intervene because the militants were being stubborn and wanted to flee with the hostages.
Militants claimed 35 hostages died when the military helicopters opened fire as they were transporting hostages from the living quarters to the main factory area where other workers were being held.
The group - led by a Mali-based al-Qaida offshoot known as the Masked Brigade - suffered losses in Thursday's military assault - but garnered a global audience.
The militants made it clear that their attack was in revenge for the French intervention against Islamists who have taken over large parts of neighboring Mali. France has encountered fierce resistance from the extremist groups in Mali and failed to persuade many Western allies to join in the actual combat.
Even violence-scarred Algerians were stunned by the brazen hostage-taking Wednesday, the biggest in northern Africa in years and the first to include Americans as targets. Mass fighting in the 1990s had largely spared the lucrative oil and gas industry that gives Algeria its economic independence and regional weight.
The official Algerian news agency said four hostages were killed in Thursday's operation, two Britons and two Filipinos. Two others, a Briton and an Algerian, died Wednesday in the initial militant ambush on a bus ferrying foreign workers to an airport. Citing hospital officials, it said six Algerians and seven foreigners were injured.
APS said some 600 local workers were safely freed in the raid - but many of those were reportedly released the day before by the militants themselves.
SUMMARY: After Islamic militants tied to al-Qaida took hostages at a natural gas plant in Algeria as retribution for France's strikes in Mali, the Algerian government launched an assault to free those held, including some Americans. Jeffrey Brown reports on conflicting accounts about how many got out alive and how many were killed.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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