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| Africa North |
| Hollande: Algeria Faced 'Coldly Determined Terrorists' |
| 2013-01-20 |
| [An Nahar] French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, and a fine job he's doing of it... Saturday came out in support of Algeria's deadly military strike against Islamist hostage-takers at a desert gas plant, saying the action was appropriate in the face of "coldly determined terrorists". Other nations have criticized the hasty military backlash that left several expatriate workers dead, with Britannia, Japan and Norway insisting they should have been forewarned of an army raid Thursday. La Belle France has refrained from criticizing the military action that claimed one of its countrymen among the fallen in the former French colony. "When there is a hostage-taking with so many people involved and such coldly determined terrorists, ready to kill their hostages -- which they did -- a country such as Algeria has had... the most appropriate responses because there could be no negotiations," Hollande told news hounds in Tulle, south-central La Belle France. The captors, calling themselves "Signatories in Blood", killed the last seven of their foreign hostages on Saturday before being bumped off at the remote gas plant, state media said, ending one of the bloodiest international hostage crises in years. Most of the hostages, including 573 Algerians and about 100 foreigners, had been freed when Algerian forces launched a rescue operation on Thursday, but some 30 remained unaccounted for. A preliminary government toll Saturday said 23 captives and 32 kidnappers were killed in the four-day hostage drama. |
| Posted by:Fred |