Algerian forces search for 5 energy workers

ALGIERS, Algeria -- Algerian forces scoured the Sahara Desert Tuesday, searching for five foreign energy workers who vanished during a chaotic four-day battle with hostage-taking Islamist militants.

One official says the men may have fled the sprawling complex during the fighting and gotten lost.

The four-day confrontation that began when al-Qaida-affiliated militants stormed the remote desert natural gas complex and took hostages early last Wednesday was punctuated by exploding cars, attacks from helicopters and a final assault by Algerian special forces.

In all, 37 hostages, including an Algerian security guard, and 29 militants were killed, but five other foreign workers remain unaccounted for.

"Are they dead? Did they attempt to flee the site after the attack like some other expatriates? Are they lost in the desert after taking a wrong turn?" an official who is part of Prime Minister Abdemalek Sellal's office told The Associated Press.

"These are all questions we ask ourselves, but one thing is sure, everything is being done to know their fate."

The Ain Amenas gas plant is located deep in the Sahara, some 800 miles south of the Mediterranean coast, with few population centers nearby.

More than 700 work at the facility, including 130 foreigners from 26 countries who were targeted by the militants. The Islamists caught as many of those foreign workers as they could and wrapped some with explosives to use as human shields.

Many foreign and Algerian workers hid and then slipped out of the sprawling facility into the desert, eventually reaching the Algerian soldiers who had surrounded the complex. This part of the Algerian Sahara is flat, dry and cold in the winter, with temperatures dropping to the 30s at night.

The hostages could also have died in the fiery shootouts at the plant after being draped with explosive belts. Seven of the bodies recovered have yet to be identified because of their degraded condition, authorities said.