(CNN) -- The terrorists who attacked the In Amenas gas complex in eastern Algeria appear to have been of several nationalities, and may have trained in jihadist camps across the border in southern Libya, according to sources familiar with the situation there.
Algerian security sources
told Reuters late Thursday that the militants whose bodies had been
recovered from the complex so far included three Egyptians, two
Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a French citizen.
Read more: Algerian hostage crisis enters 3rd day with 'ongoing activity'
Other sources said the
leader of the hostage-taking commando group dispatched to carry out the
attack was Abou al-Barra, a jihadist who had previously belonged to the
group that later became al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
A U.S. official told CNN
Wednesday that the hostage-takers appeared to have crossed the Libyan
border -- some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the gas complex -- to carry
out the attack.
Read more: 'Mr. Marlboro': The veteran jihadist behind the attack in Algeria
Libyan authorities have
been aware for some time of the existence of three militant camps south
of the desert town of Sabha, not far from the Algerian border, a
regional security source told CNN.
The source said the leader of one of those camps was a Libyan veteran of the 1980s Afghan war.
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Western intelligence
officials had established that the man had met Moktar Belmoktar -- the
overall leader of the group that assigned al Barra to carry out the
attack -- during a trip Belmoktar made to Libya late in 2011.
The source said the
three camps include jihadists from Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Mali
as well as ethnic Tuaregs, and that it was highly possible that these
camps were connected to the attack.
Read more: Islamists take foreign hostages in attack on Algerian oil field
A former head of
intelligence for the Transitional National Council in Libya also
confirmed to CNN that he was aware of three camps in the area. Rami El
Obeidi said the camps had been operational for about a year and
confirmed that foreign fighters had been among the militants training
there.
El Obeidi also said that
extremist militia in Libya were financing militant groups in Mali and
al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as well as providing them with
logistical support.
Read more: Six reasons events in Mali matter
The former intelligence
chief said the Libyan army had little capability in this vast area of
desert and there was a fear of confronting the extremists.
With the French
intervention in Mali, he said "a Pandora's Box has been opened" -- and
he believed oil fields in Libya were also at high risk of being
attacked.
Foreign oil companies
have gradually returned to Libya since the 2011 revolution that ousted
Moammar Gadhafi, but much of Libya remains highly insecure and under the
sway of independent militia.
Read more: France continues Mali airstrikes; residents frantic
A Salafist group in
eastern Libya has called for protests after Friday prayers in Benghazi
in response to the French intervention in Mali -- posting on its
Facebook page that "Mali is bleeding" because of the French involvement.
El Obeidi said that al
Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb treated the whole region as one theater and
was oblivious to the desert borders that divided the countries of the
Sahel.
North African media have
described Abou al-Barra as the one of the most effective commanders of
the Al-Mulathameen Brigade that is led by Belmoktar.
Read more: U.S. Air Force evacuating foreigners from Algeria gas plant, source says
He was born in Algeria
in the 1970s and served in the Algerian army before joining the Salafist
Group for Preaching and Combat, which was heavily involved in the
Algerian insurgency in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The group was held responsible for the kidnap of more than 30 European tourists in Algeria.
A Mauritanian news
agency -- Alakhbar -- named another of the attackers killed as Zarghawi
Al-Mouritani,18. His real name was Abdallahi Ould Hmeida, the agency
said. CNN is unable to verify the report of his death.
The Algerian
Communications Minister, Mohamed Saïd, told state media late Thursday
that the terrorist attack was the work of a multinational group of
terrorists whose aim was to implicate Algeria in the conflict in Mali,
destabilize the Algerian state and destroy the Algerian economy, which
is heavily reliant on oil and gas revenues.
Other Algerian officials have repeated that there would be no negotiations with such groups.
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