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The scale of the attack. the same month the french military assault is happening. what they attacked was a remote, gas processing facility and it was apparently way too lightly protected and full of westerners and other international civilgens who they found were easy to take hostage. >> and now to another big and still developing story tonight, americans citizens among dozens of people taken hostage in algeria and it's right next door to mali where incidentally, french war planes have been bombing for days. and nbc is the only correspondent on the ground. good evening.

They became members of the islamic state, so-called islamic state.&p however, other groups, those organizations are still operating under al qaeda. >> so, we should see this as an al qaeda affiliated attack? >> this is absolutely al qaeda affiliated attack. and interestingly enough, last month al qaeda said that mokhtar was dead and didn't say how he was killed. maybe he was hit in libya, but it took him a while to die but we can't verify the statement but it said that he was dead and we have to look back and dig the to this statement and see, was it something that mokhtar put out to release p...

Personality and a leader that you would expect his group to fall apart, if he was dead? would you expect them to be able to pull off a big attack like this in mali if they had just lost their leader? >> this is not the first time al qaeda conduct. they did something very similar attack in the capital of mali at a luxury hotel and killed lot of people before but now a lot of the attention is because of what happened in france. especially because of the french intervention in mali. is it considered an international attack against france. and al qaeda and its affiliates did not want to be upstage...

At the beginning of the civil war in mali, in the beginning of the al qaeda attack in 2013, after the situation in libya, and it became a disaster, a lot of fighters went from libya to mali and this is when the war started in mali. during that time period, boko haram appeared to have working relationships with some of the extremists operating in mali. boko haram, i think last march, they became members of the islamic state, so-called islamic state. however, other groups, those organizations are still operating under al qaeda. >> so, we should see this as an al qaeda affiliated attack? >> this ...

>> reporter: bryan, algerian officials say the hostages were taken by heavily armed islamic militants linked to al qaeda and they were responding to the military operation by the french here in mali supported by american cargo aircraft, spy planes. and it's a natural gas facility, and it's located in the remote sahara desert and they approached 3 unmarked vehicles. they took at least 20 and perhaps more than 40 people hostage, at least three americans, 13 norwegians and others from britain, ireland, canada and france, reportedly leading the attack, former al