A Canadian national coordinated the Islamist militant attack on a gas plant in Algeria where dozens of foreign workers were taken hostage and at least 37 were slain, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal told a Monday news conference. 

Sellal said Monday that 37 foreign workers from eight nations had been killed and another five were still missing. He also said 29 militants were killed with three captured alive, Reuters reported.

He was speaking as dramatic stories began to emerge from hostages who escaped the bloody end to the siege at the Tiguentourine plant near In Amenas.

Reuters had reported earlier Monday that an Algerian security source said two of the attackers found dead at the gas plant were Canadian. That report could not be immediately confirmed.

Canadian authorities acknowledged that they were investigating reports of the involvement of at least one of their citizens.

In a statement, Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs said it was "aware of reports that Canadians may have been involved in the hostage-taking in Algeria."

"We are pursuing all appropriate channels to seek further information and are in close contact with Algerian authorities," the statement added. "Canada condemns in the strongest possible terms this deplorable and cowardly attack and all terrorist groups which seek to create and perpetuate insecurity in the Sahel countries of West Africa."

One American, three Britons and two Romanians have been confirmed dead by their home countries and Reuters, citing Japanese government sources, reported that at least nine Japanese nationals also had been killed. An Algerian security source also told Reuters that at least one Frenchman had died.

About 800 people, including some 700 Algerians and 100 foreigners, managed to escape after militants stormed the compound on Wednesday last week.

During Monday's news conference, Sellal provided additional details on the attack, saying the initial objective had been to capture a bus carrying foreign workers and hold them hostage. He also said the attackers tried to blow up the gas facility by planting explosives in a gas pipe and trying to detonate it Friday night.

Algerian troops launched their first raids on the site on Thursday, but the standoff continued until Saturday, when government forces captured or killed the remaining militants and ended the siege.

Among the escaped hostages was Alan Wright, 37, of Scotland, one of 22 Britons who survived the ordeal and were flown back to the U.K. 

'Really bad situation'
Wright told ITV News that he had gone to work as usual Wednesday, but then the power went out.

"We thought it was just a normal shutdown," he said. "Then somebody said, 'There's been a terrorist attack.'"

Wright described gathering food, water and satellite phones and hiding in an office with his co-workers. They huddled there as chaos ensued.

"You could hear gunfire outside, machine-gun fire and mortars and everything going off," he said. "Sometimes rapidly, sometimes quiet for a while, but we knew it was a really, really bad situation."

Echorouk Elyaoumi / AP

Algerian bomb squads scouring a gas plant where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage found "numerous" new bodies on Sunday as they searched for explosive traps.

Wright said Algerian employees among the group eventually decided they were better off making an escape attempt.

They provided clothing and hats to help the foreign workers "blend in," he said, and cut a hole in a fence to escape.

They were spotted by Algerian soldiers, who rescued them.

"I'm just delighted to be home," Wright said. "My thoughts now are with my friends and their families who don't know what's happened to their loved ones."

The terrorist monitoring service SITE said Monday that the al-Qaida-linked Mulathameen Brigade, which claimed the mass hostage-taking, threatened to carry out more attacks unless Western powers ended what it called an assault on Muslims in neighboring Mali, Reuters reported.

Reuters and ITV News contributed to this report.

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Expert: Islamists' Algeria raid could inspire copycat attacks

One American was killed and two escaped unharmed from a natural gas complex in Algeria that was stormed by armed militants, U.S. officials said Friday. The fate of two others was unclear.

The officials said there was a total of five Americans at the In Amenas plant in eastern Algeria when the attackers seized dozens of hostages on Wednesday. The officials say two of the Americans managed to conceal themselves when the attack began and later escaped unharmed.

One U.S. citizen was found dead Friday by Algerian forces that had launched a raid on Thursday in an attempt to free the hostages, the officials said.

The deceased American was identified as Frederick Buttaccio, a U.S. official confirmed. Buttaccio's remains have been recovered from the plant and his family has been notified, the official said.

The official did not know the circumstances of Buttaccio's death.

Al-Qaida-linked militants claimed Friday that they were holding two American hostages and would exchange them for two people being held in the United States — the blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and Aafie Siddiqque a 40-year-old Pakistani neuroscientist and mother of three, who was convicted of attacking U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

That would appear to account for all five Americans thought to have been at the plant, one U.S. official said, if the militants are telling the truth.  

On Friday, the Algerian military had launched a second raid on the multinational cabal of kidnappers — led by a one-eyed al-Qaida associate — who laid siege to the In Amenas gas plant on Wednesday, state TV reported.

The situation was fluid, but the U.S. said one thing was carved in stone: It would not be cutting any deals with the captors.

"The United States does not negotiate with terrorists," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said of reports the militants were seeking the release of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life term for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist convicted of trying to kill U.S. soldiers after being arrested in Afghanistan in 2008.

Nuland confirmed there were Americans still being held alive but did not say how many.

The official Algerian news service APS said a total of 132 foreign nationals were taken hostage, and 100 had been freed by midday Friday. It said more than 500 Algerians had also been rescued.

Citing a security source, APS said 12 hostages, including some Westerners, were killed when Algeria staged its first rescue raid on Thursday without consulting other countries in advance. Eighteen militants were killed, it reported.

McFaul family via Reuters

Belfast native Stephen McFaul (right) is pictured with his sons Dylan (left) and Jake in this family handout photo taken four years ago and made available Thursday.

NBC News could not confirm the figures. The French government confirmed one of its citizens had died, and its defense minister said in an interview on France 3 TV Saturday morning that he believed no more French nationals were being held at the plant.

One worker told Reuters that the hostage-takers were out for blood.

"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," said the man, who gave his name as Abdelkader. "'We will kill them,' they said."

The brother of escapee Stephen McFaul said the hostages had their mouths taped and their necks draped with explosives. They were being trucked around the compound when the Algerian military hit the compound with explosives, he told Reuters.

"The truck my brother was in crashed and at that stage Stephen was able to make a break for his freedom," Brian McFaul said after speaking with his brother’s wife. "He presumed everyone else in the other trucks was killed."

A French catering employee who worked at the plant said he spent 40 hours hiding under a bed after the militants stormed in Wednesday with a spray of gunfire, only emerging when the soldiers arrived.

"I could see myself ending up in a wooden box," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 radio.

One rescued hostage told Algerian TV that the ordeal was an "exciting episode" and he was "impressed" with the army.

"I feel sorry for anybody who has been hurt, but other than that, I quite enjoyed it," the man said.

Algerian TV via Reuters TV

A British escapee, interviewed by Algerian TV, says the Algerian army did a "fantastic job" with Thursday's rescue.

Another said he was "very, very relieved to be out."

"Obviously, we still don't really know what is happening back on the site, so as much as we are glad to be out, our thoughts are with colleagues who are still there at the moment," he said on Algerian TV.

The militants' attack on the plant, operated in part by BP, was reportedly masterminded by Mokhtar bel Mokhtar, an Algerian with ties to al-Qaida who specializes in lucrative kidnappings and smuggling, according to U.S. officials. He earned the nickname Mr. Marlboro for trafficking cigarettes.

The raiding jihadists were described as a motley crew by an escaped radio operator who told Reuters: "Some were clean, others were dirty, some with beards, others without, and among them a French national with sunglasses."

The Mauritanian news agency ANI reported the group was retaliating over French military action against Islamic incursions in neighboring Mali. But the French operation began just a week ago and the assault on the plant appeared to be long-planned.

On Friday, another possible motive emerged, as ANI said the militants put forth the offer of the prisoner swap.

The offer was not verified by NBC News, but an ANI editor told The Associated Press the kidnappers’ spokesman began calling Thursday with "sounds of war in the background" and "threatened to kill all the hostages if the Algerian forces tried to liberate them."

British Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons in London that Algeria maintains it green-lighted Thursday’s rescue raid because hostages’ lives were in danger when it appeared the militants were trying to spirit them out of the compound.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she spoke with the prime minister of Algeria on Friday and requested that the "utmost care" be taken to protect the hostages.

"This is an extremely dangerous situation," she said. "No one knows better than Algeria how ruthless these groups are."

Kari Huus, Catherine Chomiak and Courtney Kube of NBC News and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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DIGITALGLOBE/AFP/Getty Images

This satellite image provide by DigitalGlobe from Oct. 8, 2012 shows the In Amenas gas field in Algeria, which is jointly operated by BP, Norway's Statoil and Algeria's Sonatrach.

The audacious assault by Islamist militants on a gas plant in Algeria that led to the capture of scores of hostages could spark copycat attacks, a terrorism expert warned Friday.

Terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann, an NBC News contributor who has worked for the FBI, said that other groups would almost certainly be watching closely as the militant fighters led by Mokhtar bel Mokhtar seized the giant facility near In Amenas — and might be inspired.

"(Militant groups) are all vying for attention — for fighters, for financing. They see this, they see the attention it gets," said Kohlmann, who has written about the enigmatic bel Mokhtar in the past.

Bel Mokhtar has been called "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence, along with "Mr. Marlboro" due to his reputed cigarette-smuggling empire, and "a jihadist straight out of central casting" by the British press.

"This group has carried out similar attacks to this in the past. They've certainly taken hostages. They've launched attacks against gas fields and mines,"  Kohlmann said.

'Nightmarish scenario'
But what made the In Amenas raid different was the size of the plant and the number of hostages.

"It's the scale here that we're talking about that's astounding. Taking a group like this all at once… It's really… It's a nightmarish scenario, to be honest," Kohlmann said.

"Within the past year, he's given several different interviews and video recordings in which he's been very clear that one of the primary targets for his group are those who are coming to Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and are 'stealing our resources.'"

Kohlmann said an attack on a French uranium mine in Niger in 2010 has been linked to bel Mokhtar’s group. In that case, workers were also kidnapped and four are still being held to this day.

Thursday, the operators of that and another Niger uranium mine, Areva, said they were tightening security after tons of its contaminated metal used in the extraction of uranium were found in a public junkyard.

Bel Mokhtar is a veteran of the Afghanistan war against the Soviets, a conflict in which he reportedly lost his eye, and he was also once in charge of al-Qaida’s Saharan arm.

Algerian TV via Reuters TV

Hostages freed from a gas facility in Algeria, where Islamist militants were holding them, are seen embracing in pictures broadcast by Algerian TV.

But he now runs his own gang, analysts say, and there are suspicions that he is now more interested in money than jihad.

"He fought in Afghanistan. He fought with al-Qaida in Algeria for years. This guy has been fighting in Algeria since 1991. Yet at the same time he's much more of a desert mafioso than anything else," Kohlmann said.

"He espouses jihadi aims. But he's very well-known for smuggling weapons, cigarettes, narcotics and of course these hostage-taking incidents where he's taken a lot of flak, including from within the jihadi community itself," he added.

"Some of them have said, ‘look, you talk about taking people hostage in order to get our prisoners released from jails, but then all you do is take ransom money and you let these people go.' … So, some of them have distanced themselves from him because of his attention and profit-seeking behavior, really," Kohlmann added.

He said he suspected bel Mokhtar was trying "to ingratiate himself to some of these other new jihadi movements in West Africa." 

"And what greater way than to do something like this where not only does he get a lot of media attention, but potentially he makes millions of dollars on ransom payments? And that's what these guys are really motivated by — money," Kohlman said.

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Violence in Mali, Algeria raises fresh fear of radical Islam
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Algerian militant dubbed 'Mr Marlboro' raked in millions from kidnappings
Violence in Mali, Algeria raises fresh fear of radical Islam