With Americans being held hostage in Algeria, the U.S. embassy in that country is posting Facebook photos of … “Rubik’s Cubes Portrait of Martin Luther King Jr.” Here’s a screen grab:
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And another:
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Earlier in the day, however, the American embassy in Algeria did acknowledge the hostage crisis. The embassy posts on Facebook a statement given by State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland:
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But that post was preceded with this one, saying, “Good morning, everyone!”
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Both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have been silent on the issue, so far.
For more information on what’s happening, Reuters reports:
The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the gas facility on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners and demanded a halt to a French military operation against fellow al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in neighboring Mali.
The raid increased fears that jihadist militants could launch further attacks in Algeria, a vast desert country with large oil and gas reserves that is only just recovering from a protracted conflict with Islamist rebels during the 1990s which cost an estimated 200,000 lives.
