Japanese Reactions: the Kidnapping of Foreigners in Algeria is obviously associated to the War in Mali

By African Bulletin on January 16, 2013

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National Japanese TV (NHK) has reported that the Japan’s foreign ministry is trying to confirm that Japanese nationals may have been kidnapped by Islamic militants in Algeria.

The ministry says it received the report from the country’s embassy in Algeria on Wednesday afternoon that people were kidnapped from an oil facility.

A manager from the local office of the Japanese engineering firm JGC Corporation told NHK that he received a phone call from an employee working at a construction site about 1,000 kilometers south of the capital Algiers on Wednesday morning, local time.

The employee reportedly told him that gunshots had been heard in the distance.

The manager said contact with the employee has since been lost and that detailed information on what happened at the site is not available.

The firm says nearly 130 people from Algeria and France are working at the site, along with 17 Japanese, including the company’s employees.

The Algerian news service DNA reported that armed insurgents attacked a housing complex for an oil facility in Ain Amenas in southern Algeria.

It said 5 Japanese, one French national and more than one Algerian were kidnapped and that a gun battle took place between the insurgents and Algerian security forces.

Meanwhile, the France-based AFP news agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying that a facility related to the major British oil firm BP was attacked by Islamic militants. It said Japanese, British and Norwegians have reportedly been taken hostage.

BP said in a statement that it had experienced a security incident at a gas field in Algeria but that the number and nationality of people involved is not known.

According to some Japanese experts in Maghreb Affairs and the Sahel, the timing of this incident should be strongly considered, mainly after the latest development in Mali.

For Professor Nakagawa Kei – Expert in Maghreb Affairs- , Since France began aerial bombardment of Islamist rebels in Mali last week; the larger worry has shifted from within the beleaguered country’s borders to the wider world. There are concerns not only about this Operation as this military intervention is known, but also fears of international retaliation – perhaps in the form of terrorist attacks, or assaults on foreign diplomatic targets.

She added, Almost Morocco and Mauritania as expressed such worries after widely circulated news related to the retreat of several fighters affiliated to Algerian Islamist groups or to Polisario based in Tindouf in south of Algeria

However for Professor Shoji Matsumoto – African Affairs Expert- stressed that the decision of all neighboring countries to close their borders should be associated to a strict respect to the State Responsibility Law. Such engagement would surely allay the fears of neighboring countries from the possibility of any expansion of terrorist threat on their borders. In his opinion, the coincidence of the kidnapping of foreigners Algerian territory with the retreat of fighters from Mali to other hotbeds in the northern borders of neighboring countries apply for more attention, caution, and cooperation at a large regional level.

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