₦airaland Forum

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/algeria/9807218/Britons-caught-in-al-Qaeda-Algeria-oil-plant-siege.html

A spokesman for BP refused to comment on the number of Britons missing or harmed. “Our absolute priority is the safety and security of our staff,” he said.

Victoria Nuland, a spokesman for the US State Department, said: “Beyond confirming that there are Americans among the hostages, I will ask you to respect our decision not to get into any further details as we try to secure these people.”

Dahou Ould Kablia, Algeria’s interior minister, insisted that there would no negotiations with the Islamists. “The authorities will not respond to any of the terrorists’ demands,” he said.
One of the hostages said the kidnappers were demanding the release of 100 Islamist prisoners in exhange for their freedom.

A spokesman for the Islamists told Mauritanian news agencies that Algeria had “betrayed the blood of its martyrs” and that the attack was “in response to the flagrant interference of Algeria by authorising the use of its airspace by French planes to conduct raids against northern Mali”.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/17/us-sahara-crisis-idUSBRE90F1JJ20130117


Hollande, who won wide praise for ordering air strikes and sending troops to the former French colony, said little in response. In office for only eight months, he has warned of a long, hard struggle in Mali and now faces a risk of attacks on more French and other Western targets in Africa and beyond.

The Algerian government ruled out negotiating and the United States and other Western governments condemned what they called a terrorist attack on a facility, now shut down, that produces 10 percent of Algeria's gas, much of which is pumped to Europe.

The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said they had dozens of men at the base, near the town of In Amenas close to the Libyan border, and that they were armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles.

They said they had repelled a raid by Algerian forces after dark on Wednesday. There was no government comment on that. Algerian officials said earlier about 20 gunmen were involved.

A member of an Islamist group styling itself the "Blood Battalion" was quoted by Mauritanian media as saying that five of the hostages were being held at the gas facility and 36 were in a housing area. APS said the Islamist raiders had freed Algerians working at the gas facility.

"The operation was in response to the blatant interference by Algeria and the opening of its air space to French aircraft to bomb northern Mali," the Islamist spokesman told Mauritania's ANI news agency.

IS NIGERIA PREPARED FOR REPRISAL ATTACKS, THEY HAVE ALREADY ATTACKED ALGERIA?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21038856

Islamists entered Diabaly on Monday, taking the town from Malian forces. French war planes have since attacked the rebel positions.

French army chief Edouard Guillaud said on Wednesday that ground operations had begun.

Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian added: "Today, the ground forces are being deployed. Until now, we had made sure there were a few ground forces in Bamako to keep our people safe... Now French ground forces are heading up north."

A convoy of 50 armoured vehicles left Bamako overnight.

French troops have been fighting Mali's Islamist rebels in street battles in the town of Diabaly, Malian and French sources say.

In the first major ground operation in the conflict, French special forces were fighting alongside Malian troops.

http://rt.com/news/hostages-mali-algeria-france-142/

"The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate," Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia was quoted by state news agency APS.
The United States confirmed on Wednesday that US citizens were among the hostages.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telephoned Algeria's prime minister to discuss the incident, though a State Department spokeswoman would not give any further details as they continue in their efforts to "secure these people."

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has said the US "will take all necessary and proper steps" to deal with what he described as a “terrorist attack.” Panetta did not outline what concrete actions the United States would take to deal with the hostage crisis.

An al-Qaeda affiliated group said the raid was executed in retaliation to Algeria’s decision to allow France to use its airspace to launch airstrikes against militants in Mila, where French forces have been targeting Islamists fighters since last week.
A spokesman for the group called Algeria's attitude "a betrayal for the blood of Algerian martyrs slain by the French colonists."

The group further said to ensure the safety of the kidnapped hostages in Algeria, the French attack on Northern Mali must end, Reuters reports.
On Wednesday French troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels following six days of airstrikes.
French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday French forces would remain in Mali until stability was returned to the conflict-torn West African state.

http://app.debka.com/p/article/22687/Al-Qaeda-threatens-to-blow-up-Algerian-gas-field-with-hostages-

Within 48 hours, this modest “crusader” intervention had united a host of pro-al Qaeda offshoots and allies, some of them castoffs from the army of Libya’s deposed Muammar Qaddafi.

They are led by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – AQIM; the West African jihadist MUJAO; and the Somali al-Shabaab which is linked to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – AQAP. Together, they are threatening to execute one by one the 10 or eleven French hostages they are holding as part of their revenge on France.
The French declared their mission to be to dislodge the Islamists from an area larger than Afghanistan in the north, including the principal towns of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. Without several thousand special forces’ troops on the ground, this is just a pipedream.

The disaffected Touareg tribes are supporting al Qaeda against the French as part of their drive for independence. Their added value is the training in special forces’ tactics some 1,500 Touareg fighting men and their three officers received from the US. The US originally reserved them as the main spearhead of a Western Saharan multi-tribe campaign to eradicate al Qaeda in North and West Africa.
Instead, the Sahel tribesmen followed the Touareg in absconding to Mali with top-quality weapons for desert warfare and hundreds of vehicles from US and ex-Libyan military arsenals.

Just because the endless Israel vs Iran pre-intimacy seems to no longer be exciting the world as much as it did all throughout 2010, 2011 and 2012 when military action seemed imminent over and over, it appears the world has a new geopolitical tension point: the recent incursion into Mali by French (and soon many other) forces, to protect "European interests" against "extremists" operating in the North, and as a corollary - the retaliation by the locals against Western Democratic powers. At least such is the simplistic plot line.

Sure enough moments ago Reuters reported that islamist militants attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, claiming to have kidnapped up to 41 foreigners including seven Americans in a dawn raid in retaliation for France's intervention in Mali, according to regional media reports. The raiders were also reported to have killed three people, including a Briton and a French national. Subsequent reports indicate that the Algerian captives have been let go, and that this is purely an escalation against the invaders, an act which the US state department will harshly condemn at a 1pm press conference, and likely use as a catalyst to unleash US forces in the air or on the ground, to support the French campaign which at last check was going horribly.

The attack took place in the gas field in Amenas, Alegeria, operated by a joint venture of BP, Statoil and the Algerian state company Sonatrach, presented below (via Google Maps)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-16/seven-americans-among-hostages-captured-algeria-retaliation-over-french-mali-incursi

The attack in southern Algeria also raised fears that the French action in Mali could prompt further Islamist revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe.

AQIM said it had carried out Wednesday's raid on the In Amenas gas facility in Algeria, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported.

The Algerian interior ministry said: "A terrorist group, heavily armed and using three vehicles, launched an attack this Wednesday at 5 a.m. against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Algerian and Libyan border."

The gas field is operated by a joint venture including BP , Norwegian oil firm Statoil and Algerian state company Sonatrach.

BP said armed men were still occupying facilities at the gas field.

"The site was attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people at about 0500 UK time. Contact with the site is extremely difficult, but we understand that armed individuals are still occupying the In Amenas operations site," it said.

citizenisb: The United States has dramatically reduced oil imports from Nigeria due to their huge discovery of shale oil in Dakota, Oklahoma e.t.c. And by 2017 the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the largest producer of Crude oil in the World.

Their only interest in Africa is to militarily contain the spread of the next Superpower which is China by limiting their access to vital resources in places like Iran and Africa so forget all those fake conspiracy theories.

As we speak MILITARY ASSETS are being flown to Australia, Japan and Korea to ring fence China and limit their expansionist plans. that is why the US has left Syrian shores and might soon withdraw from Afghanistan because the Middle East was yesterday's theatre. the new action is in ASIA because the United States is now ENERGY INDEPENDENT!!!

(Reuters) - The last time he was prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe's inaugural foreign trip was to China. In the job again 7 years later and relations with Beijing now chilly, Abe is turning first this time to the rising economic stars of Southeast Asia.

A hawkish Abe wants them to help counterbalance the growing economic and military might of China at a time when Japan needs new sources of growth for its languishing economy and is debating whether to make its own military more muscular.

But experts warn he will have to tread carefully during his visit to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam this week to avoid provoking Bejing by appearing to "contain" China.

Beijing is also scouring the region in search of new investment and trade opportunities and sources of raw materials. But it is also clashing with countries in the region in territorial rows in the South China Sea, as well as with Japan over tiny isles in the East China Sea.

citizenisb: The United States has dramatically reduced oil imports from Nigeria due to their huge discovery of shale oil in Dakota, Oklahoma e.t.c. And by 2017 the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the largest producer of Crude oil in the World.

Their only interest in Africa is to militarily contain the spread of the next Superpower which is China by limiting their access to vital resources in places like Iran and Africa so forget all those fake conspiracy theories.

As we speak MILITARY ASSETS are being flown to Australia, Japan and Korea to ring fence China and limit their expansionist plans. that is why the US has left Syrian shores and might soon withdraw from Afghanistan because the Middle East was yesterday's theatre. the new action is in ASIA because the United States is now ENERGY INDEPENDENT!!!

(Reuters) - The last time he was prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe's inaugural foreign trip was to China. In the job again 7 years later and relations with Beijing now chilly, Abe is turning first this time to the rising economic stars of Southeast Asia.

A hawkish Abe wants them to help counterbalance the growing economic and military might of China at a time when Japan needs new sources of growth for its languishing economy and is debating whether to make its own military more muscular.

But experts warn he will have to tread carefully during his visit to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam this week to avoid provoking Bejing by appearing to "contain" China.

Beijing is also scouring the region in search of new investment and trade opportunities and sources of raw materials. But it is also clashing with countries in the region in territorial rows in the South China Sea, as well as with Japan over tiny isles in the East China Sea.

The United States has dramatically reduced oil imports from Nigeria due to their huge discovery of shale oil in Dakota, Oklahoma e.t.c. And by 2017 the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the largest producer of Crude oil in the World.

Their only interest in Africa is to militarily contain the spread of the next Superpower which is China by limiting their access to vital resources in places like Iran and Africa so forget all those fake conspiracy theories.

As we speak MILITARY ASSETS are being flown to Australia, Japan and Korea to ring fence China and limit their expansionist plans. that is why the US has left Syrian shores and might soon withdraw from Afghanistan because the Middle East was yesterday's theatre. the new action is in ASIA because the United States is now ENERGY INDEPENDENT!!!

The United States has dramatically reduced oil imports from Nigeria due to their huge discovery of shale oil in Dakota, Oklahoma e.t.c. And by 2017 the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the largest producer of Crude oil in the World.

Their only interest in Africa is to militarily contain the spread of the next Superpower which is China by limiting their access to vital resources in places like Iran and Africa so forget all those fake conspiracy theories.

As we speak MILITARY ASSETS are being flown to Australia, Japan and Korea to ring fence China and limit their expansionist plans. that is why the US has left Syrian shores and might soon withdraw from Afghanistan because the Middle East was yesterday's theatre. the new action is in ASIA because the United States is now ENERGY INDEPENDENT!!!

A US defense report has called for contingency planning to neutralize a vast Chinese tunnel network with both “conventional and nuclear forces.” James Corbett told RT the “Underground Great Wall” scare is being used to mask US nuclear ambitions.

Orders for the Commander of the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to submit a report on means of nullifying China’s underground tunnel network were outlined in the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed by President Barack Obama on January 2.

The NDAA-directed report will further seek to identify knowledge gaps regarding China’s nuclear weapons programs, a request which was likely spurred by a controversial 2011 study out of Georgetown University entitled “Strategic Implications of China’s Underground Great Wall.”

The researchers claimed that China’s Second Artillery Corps, a secretive branch of the country’s military tasked with protecting and deploying its ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, had dug some 3,000 miles of tunnels which currently housed up to 3,000 nuclear warheads – ten times US intelligence estimates.

The report drew a firestorm of criticism via its unconventional Internet-based research methods, which relied on Google Earth, blogs, military journals and even a fictional television program about Chinese artillery soldiers, to reach its conclusions.
But the questionable conclusions of the Georgetown report and Washington’s drive to more properly assess China’s military capability, are more reflective of Washington’s own ‘nuclear strategy’ than Beijing’s ambitions, James Corbett, editor of the Japanese-based Corbett Report news website, argues.

He said they had obtained weapons from three sources. From Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi they had obtained mostly light weapons including Kalashnikovs, machine guns, rockets and surface-to-air missiles, along with jeeps and pickup trucks. "These were primarily used in the first battles, where they captured Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal against the Malian army. But there's not much left," he told Le Nouvel Observateur.

The second consignment of arms was captured when the Malian army fled Bamako as the Islamist forces captured the city. "The soldiers abandoned their bases with their weapons. The Islamists quite simply gathered up the armaments of the regular army: a few tanks, artillery, batteries. These weapons haven't yet been used," Guidère said.

The third wave of weapons was more recent, he said. "Since August, when France appeared more active and on the offensive on the subject [of Mali], the Islamists have been preparing for the possibility of an intervention. They began to use money collected from various trafficking of drugs and hostages. With this small capital they have, since September, bought everything they could on the black market. They approached all the dealers in the region, notably the Nigerians, and those from Chad and Libya."

He said there were also a lot of Russian arms in the region. "The Russians on learning of a western military operation let their arms dealers in Africa sell anything and everything. Here, the Islamists have a stock of modern material, [effective] and efficient, especially against helicopters and tanks, including night-vision glasses and binoculars."

Asked how France could have been unaware of the enemy's capacity, Guidère said: "It's true that the last important [weapons] acquisitions were on the black market and recent, but expressing astonishment is also part of the ministry of defence's communications operation. How else to justify the loss of a soldier so quickly, and the knocking out of a Mirage 2000 fighter jet against people with only Kalashnikovs."

Officials in Washington have said the United States would share intelligence with France and was considering sending unarmed surveillance drones.

Britain has made available two giant C17 transport planes which will ferry French medical gear, tanks and other equipment to Mali this week.

The rebels infiltrated the town overnight from the porous border region with Mauritania, home to AQIM camps housing well-equipped and trained foreign fighters.

France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as the policeman of its former African colonies, convened a U.N. Security Council meeting for Monday to discuss the Mali crisis.



Under pressure from Paris, regional states have said they hope to send in their forces this week. Military chiefs from ECOWAS nations will meet in Bamako on Tuesday but regional powerhouse Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has cautioned that training and deploying troops will take time.

(Reuters) - Al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels launched a counteroffensive in Mali on Monday after four days of French air strikes on their northern strongholds, seizing the central town of Diabaly and promising to drag France into a brutal Afghanistan-style war.

France, which has poured hundreds of troops into the capital Bamako in recent days, carried out more air raids on Monday in the vast desert area seized last year by an Islamist alliance grouping al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM alongside Mali's home-grown MUJWA and Ansar Dine militant groups.

"France has opened the gates of hell for all the French," a spokesman for MUJWA, Oumar Ould Hamaha, told Europe 1 radio. "She has fallen into a trap which is much more dangerous than Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia."

Paris is determined to shatter Islamist domination of northern Mali, which many fear could become a launchpad for terrorism attacks on the West and a base for coordination with al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

That is extremelly secondary.

Here's how the rebels gained strength:

from the Libyan event.

'American' nations bombed arsenals in Libya and also reversed the course of the war, leading the late mad dog Guaddafi to open up the arsenals to the population to prepare for a last stand.

In both cases, the outcome was to provide the rebels who served as mercenaries for the late mad dog Guadafi with military grade weapons of a much better standard than they were used to handle (was reserved to Gadafi's official army)

When Mali looked around to try to upgrade their own military equipment to match the threat, just after the mercenaries started to leak into the country, 'american' nations forced a weapons embargo on them. Hence a fast advance by rebels.

It is just another 'american' engineering.

The defection of Mali military officers and equipment (which is inferior to the one the former mercenaries got from Libya) going with it, simply showed that those people were not blind to 'american' nations' scheming.

Also shows the spread of 'americanism': if you cant beat them, join them.

http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/component/k2/item/2955-30-roasted-at-journalists’-estate-•as-pipeline-explodes-in-ogun-•fuel-scarcity-looms

On the number of persons involved in the incident, the suspect claimed that there were more than 50 men and women, the ASP said. The police officer also told NAN that the doctor had tried to exonerate himself from the crime. He claimed he acted ``in accordance with his oath to protect life,’’ after receiving a distress call from ``a customer’’ for an emergency, the ACP said.

Meanwhile, scarcity of fuel looms in Lagos State and Ogun as NNPC has since stopped the flow of petroleum products through the Arepo pipeline, pending the repair of the ruptured pipeline.

Good excuse for another round of fuel scarcity

Eyewitness account stated that the explosion came after an argument erupted between two of the vandals who were struggling to siphon fuel from the pipeline and it resulted into a heated argument that made one of them who was armed with a rifle to shoot indiscriminately into the air.Vanguard learnt that bullets from the rifle hit the ruptured pipeline and led to an explosion

Atleast 10 suspected vandals were, Saturday, feared dead in an explosion that rocked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,NNPC, pipeline at Arepo village, Owode, Ogun State.

Vanguard gathered that the explosion came following a fire which was sparked off by some vandals who stormed the creeks by boat to siphon fuel from the NNPC pipeline.

Arepo was the scene of the killing of three NNPC officials by vandals last year. One of the survivors of Saturday’s incident was said to have participated in the officials murder.

Atleast 10 suspected vandals were, Saturday, feared dead in an explosion that rocked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,NNPC, pipeline at Arepo village, Owode, Ogun State.

Vanguard gathered that the explosion came following a fire which was sparked off by some vandals who stormed the creeks by boat to siphon fuel from the NNPC pipeline.

Arepo was the scene of the killing of three NNPC officials by vandals last year. One of the survivors of Saturday’s incident was said to have participated in the officials murder.

There were fears, that damage to the pipeline could worsen petrol scarcity as it supplies the product from Atlas Cove Jetty in Lagos to other South-West states.

Eyewitness account stated that the explosion came after an argument erupted between two of the vandals who were struggling to siphon fuel from the pipeline and it resulted into a heated argument that made one of them who was armed with a rifle to shoot indiscriminately into the air.Vanguard learnt that bullets from the rifle hit the ruptured pipeline and led to an explosion.


http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/01/10-feared-dead-at-arepo-pipeline-explosion/

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday said the current level of corruption in Nigeria is assuming an unimaginable proportion and mind-boggling.

In another development, the inspector-general of police, Mohammed Abubakar, has blamed the craze for the nation’s oil wealth for the current insecurity in the country.

http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/44499/2013/01/09/corruption_under_jonathan_too_much_obasanjo.html


Former president Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday said the current level of corruption in Nigeria is assuming an unimaginable proportion and mind-boggling.

In another development, the inspector-general of police, Mohammed Abubakar, has blamed the craze for the nation’s oil wealth for the current insecurity in the country.

Some of the earliest loans obtained by the Federal Government from China included $200m for the rural telephony project and another $200m for the Nigeria Communications Satellite project.

The most recent ones include $500m for the Abuja Light Rail project; $500m for four airport terminals; $100m for the Galaxy Backbone network expansion; $1.04bn for the Zungeru Hydropower project, $2.56bn for the Mambila Hydropower project; $1bn for the modernisation of the Lagos-Kano rail project; and $100m for expansion of connectivity in the MDAs.