Qualla: In Amenas Hostage Crisis

In Amenas Hostage Crisis: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Before dawn on 16 January 2013, a guard named Mohamed Lamine Lahmar made a decision that would cost him his life and save many others. Militants were storming the Tigantourine gas plant in the deep Algerian Sahara, and Lahmar reached the plant-wide alarm and set it screaming across the site. The warning gave workers seconds to hide and to begin shutting down the systems that, if detonated, could have destroyed the entire facility. Moments later, the attackers shot him dead. He was the only Sonatrach employee killed in the attack that followed - four days of terror at a remote desert outpost that would end with the deaths of around forty hostages from across the world, and would force questions, still unsettled, about how it was allowed to happen.

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In Amenas Hostage Crisis: An Outpost in the Sand

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Tigantourine gas facility sits about 40 kilometers southwest of the town of In Amenas in far eastern Algeria, close to the Libyan border and some 1,300 kilometers from Algiers. It is run by the Algerian state company Sonatrach in partnership with Britain's BP and Norway's Sta...

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In Amenas Hostage Crisis: Four Days Under the Gun

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What unfolded over the next days was harrowing. For hours, the gunmen moved door to door through the compound, hunting for foreigners, dragging people from hiding places, and shooting some who tried to run. More than 800 people were caught up in the crisis in all. The hostages ca...

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In Amenas Hostage Crisis: The Assault and Its Toll

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Algerian government refused to negotiate. Its forces moved to retake the site, and the result was bloody and contested. At one point the militants loaded hostages into six vehicles and drove out onto the road; the convoy was attacked by the Algerian military, and survivors wh...

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In Amenas Hostage Crisis: The People Behind the Numbers

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

It is easy to let a death toll blur into a statistic. The people lost at In Amenas were not. They were named. Carlos Estrada, a BP vice-president for North Africa who had given the company more than 18 years, died there; he was a resident of the United Kingdom. Three Americans we...

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