The hostage situation in Algeria has gotten resolved. Ugly.

Links here and here; the usual conflicting reports of just how many terrorists and hostages died, and that won’t get determined until later in the day – but the Algerians apparently did assault the facility where the hostages were being held, and hostages apparently did die.  I suspect that this was a case of a series of bad decisions cascading into a catastrophe, and not the “God will know his own” policy favored by, say, Russian counter-terrorism agencies… but we’ll know more as we go along.

Via here and here.

Moe Lane

PS: Notice the explicit lack of This is not a time for partisan politics in the text above; mostly because I don’t actually know whether it is a time for partisan politics or not.  If it turns out that the Obama administration is essentially blameless in this matter, fine: if they contributed to it somehow, nail ’em to the wall.  This White House has already gotten enough innocent US citizens killed, and Barack Obama’s first term isn’t even over yet…

Algerian Islamists take hostages, including Americans.

Meanwhile, the world continues to be a dangerous place.

Islamist militants seized a foreign-operated gas field in Algeria early Wednesday and took at least 20 foreign hostages, including Americans, according to an Algerian government official and the country’s state-run news agency, in what the attackers called a retaliation for the French-led military intervention in neighboring Mali.

The Algerian agency said at least at least two people were killed in the gas-field seizure, including one British national, and the Algeria Interior Ministry said security forces had been dispatched to the area. The Algerian news agency said that the hostages included American, British, French, Norwegian and Japanese citizens.

Continue reading Algerian Islamists take hostages, including Americans.