StandardNewswire.com
Contact: K.Drawi, 240-994-2476
WikiLeaks has recently released a confidential email sent by Sidney Blumenthal on January 17, 2013 to former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to inform her on the “LATEST FRENCH INTELLIGENCE REPORTS ON ALGERIAN HOSTAGE CRISIS.”
The email was sent just a day after the hostage crisis at the Tigantourine gas facility near In Amenas, Algeria where at least 39 foreign hostages were killed along with an Algerian security guard.
The report sent by Sidney Blumenthal, a long-time confidant of Hillary Clinton and former aid to her husband Bill during his presidential tenure, reveals that the Bouteflika government reached a highly secret understanding with the Algerian jihadist after the April 2012 kidnapping of the Algerian consul in Gao (Mali) “to concentrate his operations in Mali, and occasionally, with the encouragement of the Algerian DGSE (Department of External Security), attack Moroccan interests in Western Sahara.”
According to the report, Algerian leader Abdel Aziz Bouteflika was chocked and disoriented by the taking of hostages committed on January 16, 2013, by a brigade led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, despite the secret understanding which had been previously concluded.
“As result of the attacks, Algerian security officials feared that they might mark a resumption of the 20-year civil war and the Algerian government was less concerned by the fate of the 35 hostages,” states the document.
In addition to the In Amenas hostage crisis, the report notes that Belmohktar’s forces had existing contingency plans to attack Western facilities in Algeria and in Western Sahara.
