Algiers (AFP) - Algeria Friday defended its controversial military intervention to end the bloody seizure by armed Islamists last year of the In Amenas desert gas plant, in which 38 hostages were killed.
"The intervention by the Algerian security forces was imperative for saving hundreds of human lives and for protecting a strategic site that the terrorists were planning to blow up," foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani said in a statement.
His comments come days before the anniversary of the hostage crisis, which saw hundreds of staff held at the plant until the security force brought the standoff to a bloody end.
The statement follows articles in the foreign media quoting survivors blaming poor security at the site, which lies deep in the Sahara desert, 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) southeast of Algiers.
Belani slammed "the one-sided agitating in certain foreign media around the anniversary."
"We vigorously reject the biased claims and absurd allegations published by those media which ... almost exonerate the authors of this heinous attack and portray a gang of lawless criminals as potential interlocutors with whom there was an opportunity to negotiate."
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