Al-Qaeda Claims Friday Attack on Algerian Gas Plant
Local Editor
Al-Qaeda's North Africa arm claimed responsibility for a mortar attack on a gas plant in the Sahara jointly operated by Britain's BP and Norway's Statoil, calling it a protest over shale gas extraction.
No one was injured in the Friday attack and Algerian troops fanned out to hunt the perpetrators. The Defense Ministry said two homemade rocket shells fell near the production site near In Salah.
Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb issued messages saying it targeted the site because the government suppressed protests over pollution from shale gas extraction there. The messages, published Saturday by the SITE extremist monitoring group, also threatened Western companies and the Algerian government.
It was on Friday morning, approximately at 06:00 local time, that the In Salah gas asset in Krechba was hit by explosive munitions fired from a distance," said a statement from Statoil.
Relatively, an industry source told media that in the early morning, three or four rocket propelled grenades hit a central processing facility, but luckily there were no casualties or damage reported.
The attack recalled a deadly hostage-taking at another Algerian gas plant in 2013, which left 37 dead.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
Comments
- Related News
