Hostages taken in Algeria

[DQuaN]

This news is a couple of days old now buy I'm bringing it up as there has been a development.

For those of you that don't know, 41 hostages were taken (and one Brit and one Algerian killed) by Islamist militants in what is suspected to be in revenge of the western intervention in Mali.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21056884

As soon as this story broke I feared for the lives of the hostages. This is not a small kidnapping and with that many hostages and militants, something was bound to go wrong.

I figured there would only be one way to end this with minimal loss of life, send in the SAS.

There are small reports coming through now (none very detailed), that the Algerian army has attempted the rescue. It has not gone well. 14 Militants and 34 of the hostages are now dead.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21063370


*edit*
Bloody hell. Reports are coming in that the deaths were caused by an Algerian army helicopter attack on the area. What the hell were they thinking???

 

[niky]

BBC live reports different. What feeds are you watching?

 

[DQuaN]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21063370

Militants told local media that Algerian forces had opened fire from the air.

I can't remember where I read that it was a Helicopter. It was somewhere on the BBC website though.

 

[niky]

Now saying that it's a terrorist spokesperson who claimed that. Going to be hard to get a clear picture of what's happening until someone lands a news crew at the site.

 

[Johnnypenso]

CBC here reported the Algerian helicopter angle as well..as of 10 minutes ago.

 

[Keef]

I think they should land a news crew at the site and flood the airwaves with this news because it would be an excellent distraction from issues that actually matter on a large scale and effect everybody, just like most of the short-lived but exciting events they report on.