Soldiers stormed the gas facility yesterday to free hostages held captive by Islamic militants since Wednesday.

Algerian forces yesterday, January 17, 2013 launched a military operation at a gas facility in eastern Algeria to free hostages taken the day before by Islamic militants. Media reports quoting militants said 34 hostages and 14 kidnappers were killed in the operation, the BBC reported.

At least four foreign hostages were freed. A local resident said there were multiple deaths but there was no official confirmation of any deaths as at the time of going to press. Militants told local media that Algerian forces had opened fire from the air. The militants earlier said they were holding 41 foreign nationals. Prior to the assault, Algerian soldiers had been surrounding the facility near In Amenas that kidnappers occupied on Wednesday, after killing a Briton and an Algerian.

Militants also told Mauritania's ANI news agency that seven foreign hostages were still alive after the Algerian military raid. Nearly 600 Algerian workers and four foreign hostages - two from Scotland, one from France and one from Kenya - were freed during the operation, APS reported. A news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying that about half of the foreign hostages had been liberated.

Earlier, 20 foreigners and 30 Algerian nationals had successfully escaped from the abductors. The New York Times said armed men in unmarked trucks seized the In Amenas natural gas plant 800 miles from the capital, Algiers after ambushing a bus ferrying gas workers to an airport, leaving two people dead. American, French, British, Japanese and Norwegian citizens who worked at the gas field were among the hostages. Algeria’s Interior Minister, Daho Ould Kablia, said the raid was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and recently set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local Al Qaeda leaders.

Another militant group, Katibat Moulathamine or the Masked Brigade, said the attack was in revenge for Algeria's support of France's military operation against Al Qaeda-linked rebels in neighbouring Mali. Spokesmen for two groups believed to be led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar - the Khaled Abu al-Abbas Brigade and the Signed-in Blood Battalion – said they were behind the abduction. Meanwhile, the Algerian government yesterday searched desperately for a way to end the hostage crisis peacefully by turning to local Tuareg elders for help, Fox News reported. The government was also in talks throughout Wednesday night with the U.S. and France over the crisis.