In a first account of the hostage situation, the Algerian prime minister said Monday that the Islamic militants who attacked a BP facility in the Algerian desert were prepared to blow it up. At least 37 hostages and 29 militants are dead after Algerian special forces waged a counter-attack. NBC's Janet Shamlian reports.By Richard Engel and Robert WindremNBC NewsIn Texas on Tuesday, the FBI told Erin Lovelady that her father was one of three Americans who had been killed in the terrorist assault on an Algerian gas facility last week. The news destroyed a bit of his daughter's faith.
"My whole life he always told me that good things happen to good people and that I was a good person and good things were going to happen for me," she said Tuesday.
The grief of the Lovelady family is a poignant reminder of the growing concern among U.S. counterterrorism officials that the amorphous al-Qaida-affiliated groups contesting swathes of northern Africa are increasingly coordinating their strategy with al-Qaida central in Pakistan – the remnants of the terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden.
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