(This story was published in the Port Aransas South Jetty Newspaper on February 14)
By Jim Dubois Reporter
Mark Cobb has worked in Algeria as a deputy general manager for BP for 17 years. On Jan. 16, Cobb scrambled for his life as terrorists attacked a BP facility.
Last month, a native Port Aransan found himself at the center of a terrorist attack that would seize world attention and leave nearly three dozen people dead.
It happened on Jan. 16, when a group known as the Blood Brigade attacked a BP gas facility in Tiguentourine, near the city of In Amenas, Algeria. The plant was the site of a joint venture between BP and other large oil and gas corporations. The terrorists took employees of both the BP company and its partners as hostages. This was the first massive terrorist attack on a private gas facility ever. After four days of battle and negotiation, the Algerian army made plans to enter the camp and free the hostages. In response, the terrorists blew up a large part of the facility, killing 35 people along the way. Only a few employees were lucky enough to escape the camp and survive the attack before being taken.
Mark Cobb was one of them.
Cobb, 55, was born and raised in Port Aransas. He graduated from Flour Bluff High School in 1978. He has one son, J.T., and a daughter, Andrea. He has worked in Algeria as a deputy general manager for BP for 17 years. On Sunday, Feb. 10, he was on 60 Minutes with two other survivors to talk about the attack. Before the show aired, he sat down with the South Jetty to share his story.
The attack
It was Jan. 16, and the clock read 5:10 a.m., and Cobb was waking up and getting ready to tackle a new day at the office.
“I left my bedroom, located in the ‘base de vie’ (French for life base) and knocked on the door of my project manager’s office around 5:15 a.m.,” he said. “I told him I needed to have a meeting with him later that afternoon. Then I walked through the courtyard to go to my office building.”
His office was located in the northwest corner of the company camp. He could see the main road from his office windows.
“I started my normal routine: looking at my e-mails, that kind of stuff. At around 5:40, I got up to get a cup of coffee, and I thought I heard a gun shot.”
That gunshot was the beginning of an attack on what the employees called the VCP, or vehicle checkpoint. At that time, a group of employees— most foreign to Algeria—was getting ready to leave camp to go to In Amenas airport. Two or three buses were ready to leave and were protected by a small contingent of Algerian gendarmes, a military force. They were there to protect employees and escort them between the two facilities. According to official reports, attackers disguised in military fatigues opened fire at that moment, killing two members of the security escort. They also attacked one of the buses, killing many expatriates. A dozen soldiers of the Algerian army, taken by surprise, managed to evacuate nearly 20 employees from the other buses stationed at the VCP.
Cobb, hearing the commotion, said he tried to figure out what was going on. He began looking through his office windows as he heard more gunshots.
“I heard a massive gun battle break out,” he explained. “I could tell immediately that it was more than a dozen people with heavy machine guns. I also heard an explosion, so I figured it was an RPG or a grenade that went off.”
Cobb realized then that the facility was under attack. He had no idea how big the attack was, but he knew he had to follow the emergency protocol.
“I was with three other people in my office building,” he said. “My secretary was there, the house boy who cleans the building, and my logistics manager. They were all out of their offices at the time, because they heard the massive gunfire. I told them we needed to hide, and we needed to stay together.”
The group sought refuge in a chamber called the IMT or Instant Management Team room. It is a special sanctuary located in the office building and intended for emergencies like gas leaks, explosions, or massive industrial accidents. The room was equipped with satellite communication. It was for that reason that Cobb chose this particular room.
“I knew that if we were under terrorist attack, they might shut down the cell phone network,” he said. “We have our own network, so it’s easy to turn it off. I wanted to be able to communicate with the outside world.”
Cobb also called the BP headquarters in London to inform them about the situation.
“I called my boss in London before going into the room. He did not answer because it was too early in the morning, but he called me back almost right away, because he knew something was going on for me to call him that early. I asked him to activate the BP group crisis center and the business support team in London. I didn’t know how bad the situation was at that time, but it was bad.”
Finding a place to hide
The group locked themselves in the room for about an hour, according to Cobb. They had begun following the standard security protocol when the alarm went off after the first five minutes of the gun battle. Reports later showed that one of the security guards at the checkpoint had just enough time to push the alarm button before being shot dead. His action provided enough time for some people to hide and even escape.
Cobb and his colleagues stayed inside the building and remained low, trying to look through the windows without touching the shades so as not to reveal their position.
“I looked through one of the windows, and I saw three terrorists coming in the parking lot with who I thought was my counterpart, Lotfi Benadouda,” Cobb said.
Lotfi Benadouda was a BP general manager for the facility, and he worked with Cobb on a daily basis.
Cobb said the attackers “had turbans on their heads, their faces were covered up, and they were carrying AK- 47s. When I saw them, I knew it went from bad to really bad. There was gunfire everywhere in the camp. I knew I was going to be taken, so I asked my staff to help me hide.”
As the BP deputy manager, Cobb was a valuable target. He was considered a representation of the western world due to his American nationality. Throughout the attack, Algerian nationals were free to wander in the camp. They were not the targets of the attack, and the terrorists made sure that they knew it. Cobb said the terrorists were interested only in expatriates, especially Americans, English and French. They even reserved special treatment for American hostages. They were all handcuffed to a terrorist to make sure they could not escape once captured. Knowing that these men would be looking for him, Cobb left the IMT room and hid in another room at the far end of his office building.
“My colleagues helped me move a big armoire. I curled into a little ball behind it, and my colleagues put a whole bunch of maps and boxes on top of me,” he explained.
After a couple of hours, Cobb said he did not hear gunshots anymore, which is why he decided to leave his shelter. He took advantage of this time to stretch his muscles, which were aching from his cramped hiding quarters. A few minutes later, howev- er, one of Cobb’s colleagues walked into the room.
“He came in, and he told me to hide right away,” he said. “Two terrorists were coming in, looking for expatriates. They knew this building was one of the main office buildings. I heard them kick down the front door.”
The search
The attackers were in the middle of the building and started searching the right side of it. Luckily, Cobb was hidden at the far left end. He took advantage of the little bit of time he had to call his family.
Cobb said he was whispering into the phone, afraid of being heard by one of the terrorists to speak aloud.
“I called my daughter-inlaw, Samantha. I told her that I was probably going to be killed or taken hostage. I told her to tell my son, J.T., that he was the best son a dad could ever want. I started saying my goodbyes.”
A few seconds later, Cobb recalled, his phone vibrated. His son was returning his call.
“J.T. called me back, crying,” he said. “My son told me I couldn’t give up; that I had to find a way to get away. He told me that I had a granddaughter, and she couldn’t grow up without a grandpa. I told him I didn’t know what I could do, but I’d try my best.”
It was the last phone call Cobb made for a couple of hours. He explained that he turned his phone off afterward because he did not want to risk it vibrating or beeping.
Cobb continued to hear the terrorists kicking in the doors of every room they walked in. He could sense that they were making their way down the hall toward him.
“ They made their way through every room, and I could hear their steps,” he said. “Every two to three minutes, you would hear a door slamming against the wall. It would be quiet for a couple minutes, and then you would hear another door. As I sat on that floor, I could hear them going through the bathroom, through the kitchen, and when I was expecting them to come inside my room, they turned away and did not kick the door I was behind. Only God knows why. It was a miracle and a gift from God to save my life. That is the only explanation I have.”
The escape
Believing that the terrorists would not come back in the building for quite some time, Cobb got out of his cover and looked for a way out. The safest place to go appeared to be the military compound, located between the two main facilities. This camp was the base for the gendarmes, who were waiting for orders on how to proceed with the situation. Cobb knew that he and his colleagues would be safe if they could get there.
“I called the captain and told him where we were,” he said. “I asked him if he could send four or five men to the fence a few yards away from our building to cover us as we escaped. He said he couldn’t risk his men being seen by the terrorists because it would jeopardize the lives of the hostages. After a few minutes, we reached a compromise.”
The captain told Cobb he would send a guy, crawling across the desert, all the way to the fence to cut it open. Once the fence was open, however, Cobb and his colleagues would be on their own.
“Probably an hour later, around 11 a.m., the captain called me back,” Cobb said. “The fence was open. We had to go right away because we could see the terrorists searching individual buildings.”
Cobb asked his Algerian staff to go out in the parking lot and talk to other employees in order to gather information about terrorist movements.
“We needed to know where they were, where they were looking, where they were going,” he explained. “The last thing we wanted was to run into terrorists during our escape.”
Finding that the terrorists were a reasonable distance away, Cobb asked one of his guys to stay near the hole in the fence.
“I wanted to be sure we did not miss the spot,” he said. “We only had one shot.”
The group waited for the right moment to leave the building, then dashed around the corner. They stopped there, facing the opening in the fence.
Cobb recalled how his employees wanted him to go alone to save his life. They knew that the risk posed to their lives was minimal, while their boss’s life was in grave danger.
“I could not accept it,” he said. “I told them, ‘We all go, or no one goes.’ We argued for a couple minutes, then my secretary said that if that was what it took for me to go, then they’d all go.”
Taking cover at the corner of the building, Cobb tried to look for any enemy movements around the area.
“I knew terrorists could see us because the fence went all the way to the main entrance guard building, and it was a straight and open shot,” he said. “Maybe some of the guys were walking and searching for people along the fence. We didn’t know, so we just ran. We ran as fast as we could.”
“We ran and rolled under the fence; we stumbled a couple times, and then we ran across the desert,” Cobb said.
They ran in a zigzag pattern without looking behind them, Cobb said. Asked about this particular pattern, Cobb gave a firm reply: “To make sure it was harder for them to shoot us.”
The distance between the two facilities was approximately three-quarters of a mile, according to Cobb. Halfway through his run, Cobb stopped and hid behind a bunch of equipment.
“I was hurting like hell,” he said. “I thought I’d been shot. I checked my leg and realized I had pulled a hamstring.”
Cobb said it was excruciating, but it did not stop him--not in that situation. They were near the gate of the military compound, within reach of safety and freedom. The group ran toward the entrance, where a group of military men was waiting.
“One of the guys was about a hundred meters out of the base,” he said. “He grabbed me, ripped my jacket off, and I screamed out ‘no bomb, no bomb.’ The rest of the men checked the three Algerians who were with me and led us inside quickly.”
Cobb understood the military had suffered casualties because he saw blood on the soldiers’ jackets.
Inside the military compound, Cobb met another expatriate who had made his way out from the CPF. He was the first expatriate Cobb had seen since the beginning of the attack. They exchanged stories and told the gendarmes what they saw and heard in the camp. Afterward, the gendarmes informed them that they were to be transferred out of the camp soon.
“The lieutenant came up to me and said they had to move me because the place was not safe,” Cobb said. “I thought it was perfectly safe because I had a hundred soldiers around me, all standing at the fence with their heavy machine guns out, .50 calibers, that kind of stuff. But he was concerned that the terrorists might attack the military camp.”
The outcome
At that time, the Algerian army had encircled the entire complex and was negotiating with the Blood Brigade. Cobb, the other expatriates, and a few scattered nationals got into an armored land cruiser and left the camp.
“On our way out, I saw one of the security vehicles we used to drive employees around,” Cobb said. “Apparently, the driver was arriving at VCP when the attack broke out. He turned around and made it back to the camp. I learned later that a foreigner was with him at the time. He was my security manager. He got shot in the head right away. He was the first to be killed.”
Aboard the armored land cruiser, the group drove through the desert, circling the gas facility to finally join the VCP. The Algerian army had decided to establish its headquarters there.
“I recall seeing helicopters lined up on the road, and I thought, ‘those terrorists have RPGs, even mortars,’” Cobb said. “I felt like it wasn’t a great idea to land helicopters there.”
It was almost noon at that point, and the Algerian military was getting ready to enter the facility.
“As I got ready to get on a bus, the soldiers started to make their move,” he said. “The general was there to control the entire operation.”
On the bus, Cobb met another foreigner. He was an Indonesian who escaped through the front gate with the help of Algerian workers.
“The guy looked Algerian, so the workers surrounded him in the middle of their group and walked out of the base de vie,” Cobb explained. “Just like that, he was free and safe.”
The bus, full of Algerians and three expatriates, was then on its way to In Amenas.
The group slept in a guarded camp because Cobb refused to sleep in an unsecured camp.
“I requested to sleep in a secure place, because after what we’d been through, there was no way I was sleeping in a camp without military protection. They put 20 troops all around the place to protect us.”
On Thursday morning, Cobb texted his senior project manager Nick Hitch, asking if he was all right. The text read ‘Safe,’ and included the names of two other people. It was reassuring for Cobb to know that some of the guys he worked with were still alive. Two hours later, Cobb texted him again, asking for his status. The reply was a shock.
“I got a text from him with only two words: ‘hostage V.I.P.’,” Cobb said. “I just went…‘Oh my god.’ Then around 6 p.m. he sent me another text, saying he was bedding down for the night. You talk about a strange text…my first thought was that he escaped.
He still had his phone; he had to have escaped.”
Cobb replied to the text, asking for more information. He did not get an answer--not this time. At 7 a.m. the next day, Cobb was walking out of the cafeteria when his phone rang. It was Hitch.
“I answered the phone and asked him right away if he was OK,” Cobb said. “Nick interrupted me. He asked me to listen carefully. He said ‘Mark, listen. This is Nick Hitch.’ I said ‘Nick, I know who you are!’ He interrupted me again. He said in a very serious tone that I will never forget, ‘Mark, I have been selected to be the first hostage executed. You have 30 minutes to get the Algerian army to back off, or the terrorists will kill me. Do you understand the demands?’ I just stood there. I didn’t know what to say. What can you say in that situation? What do you say to a guy who’s been one of your employees for years when he calls to tell you that terrorists are fixing to execute him? I just said, ‘Nick, I’m praying for you, brother. Be strong.’ That’s all I could say to him.”
After that, the terrorists cut the line.
At that time, Hitch was in a convoy that transported hostages from the company camp to CPF. Five cars made up the convoy, and every hostage was strapped with explosives. The convoy traveled only half a mile before the Algerian army opened fire on the cars, and helicopters fired missiles in order to stop the convoy. One missile landed just a few feet from Hitch’s car. The blast of the explosion injured terrorists and hostages alike, but it also created confusion. Hitch used this confusion to his advantage by escaping the car and running away.
“I had assumed he was dead,” Cobb said. “When I found out he was alive, it was such a relief. I talked to him at the hospital. He’s going to make a full physical recovery, but he told me that he did not know if he was truly dead or alive. He said that he was so close to dying so many times, with a gun pointed against his temple and being told, ‘You’re going to die, infidel.’ He told me he didn’t know how to feel.”
Even though Cobb was now safe, he was still concerned about the rest of his employees. So, when BP asked them to take a plane back to London, he declined.
“BP wanted us to be out of the country as fast as possible,” he said. “I refused and stayed behind for the sole reason that I was the leader. In the eyes of all the expatriates, I was the leader. These were my guys. There was no way I could leave that country in the middle of a hostage situation without knowing what happened to all of my guys.”
Cobb stayed in In Amenas for three more days, awaiting an end that was long in coming.
By Saturday, the fate of everybody was well known. The military had cleared the complex and had found the damages caused by the explosion in the plant.
The few terrorists who had survived the convoy attack took seven hostages with them to the CPF. Knowing the end was near, the terrorists then blew up the plant. It was the terrorists’ final act.
Safe at last
On Saturday night, Cobb was reunited with his counterpart, Benadouda, who told Cobb he survived the attack because the terrorists did not recognize him, due to his nationality.
“He ran into terrorists on the first day,” Cobb said. “They asked him who he was and where he was going. He did not answer the first question, but said he was going to the kitchen. They thought he was the cook and let him go.”
Cobb said they both broke down and sobbed when they saw each other.
“We are like a two-man team,” he explained. “Both of us took personally the fact that we lost so many employees. It didn’t matter whether they were BP employees, contractor employees, or international contractor employees. In the end, you lose 40 people, it impacts you.”
Benadouda was the one who had to go into the field to identify the bodies, to help them separate the terrorists from expatriates. He told Cobb it was impossible to do.
“He said that the only way he could do it was by the clothing,” Cobb explained. “There was only one body that he was able to recognize out of 17, and that was only because of the hat and glasses. The rest of them were charred beyond recognition.”
According to official reports, 35 hostages died in the ordeal, and four are still missing. The hostages hailed from countries all around the globe. The United States, Britain, France, Norway, Japan, and Ireland all lost citizens in the attack. One Algerian lost his life, 29 terrorists died, and three were captured. The attackers were mostly from African countries, such as Tunisia, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Algeria. One of them was from Canada.
According to official reports, the attack has been claimed by an Al-Qaeda faction named the Blood Brigade. The group is led by Mokthar Belmokthar, who is known as a former top commander of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. He has been linked to a series of high-profile kidnappings and terrorist attacks for 20 years. The Blood Brigade announced that the attack was a response to the French offensive against rebels in Mali. However, reports said that the attack was likely planned weeks or even months in advance, given the complexity of it.
On Jan. 25, BP released a statement to all BP staff, saying that four of their colleagues died in the attack.
“Those colleagues and other members of the In Amenas workforce were attacked by murderers on what should have been an ordinary workday,” BP group chief executive Bob Dudley wrote. “This was an appalling act of evil—a barbarous and pre-meditated criminal attack which has rightly been condemned around the world.”
Cobb said he would never go back to Algeria.
“I lost a lot of very dear friends over there,” he said. “My biggest struggle right now is what I call the boogeyman. It comes every night and there is the sound of those footsteps going down that hall, looking for me. It keeps me from getting a good night’s sleep.”
According to Cobb, the BP response was comprehensive, including making counseling services available for all of its employees. The company understood the gravity of the event and did everything in its power to help employees, he said.
“I am damn proud to be an employee of British Petroleum,” he said. “I saw the corporate heart they showed in an unprecedented criminal act like this, the way they reached out to people. They stopped their business, and the focus was on this.”
Cobb also praised the work of the U.S. military forces that assisted the Algerian army. They provided satellite recognition of the site and sent helicopters to rescue survivors.
“I won’t say much because I can’t really give details about the federal government’s response, but suffice it to say that they did more than I would ever imagine in a situation like that.”
Cobb went on to praise the FBI.
“I didn’t have my passport or any identification on me,” he explained. “In Algeria, the FBI interrogated me for hours. After that, they escorted me, with the MI6, the British equivalent of the FBI, and they flew me to London. They set up a meeting in a hotel with four other survivors that I hadn’t seen until that point in time. They had a psychologist waiting for us there. After that, they found me a hotel to stay and provided armed security all night long. I never would have thought that the FBI was a compassionate organization, extremely compassionate.”
Because he was without his passport, the FBI helped Cobb get back into the United States. When they arrived at Corpus Christi, his family was waiting for him.
“The FBI allowed my family to drive the car onto the runaway,” he said. “They had a conference room reserved for a big family reunion. I got off the plane and onto the runway, took my bag right there, and went to see my family.”
The FBI escorted Cobb and his family out of the airport to protect them from general public and media.
Cobb finished his story with these words: “I am damn proud to be an American.”
HannumPort Aransas Independent School District Board of Trustees hired Michael Hannum to replace H.G Olsen Elementary School Principal Patricia Nelson, who will retire at the end of the year, during its regular meeting on Wednesday, March 20.
Michael Hannum, who poses here in the Brundrett Middle School library on Friday, March 22, will be the new Brundrett Middle School principal for the next school year. Port Aransas Independent School District Board of Trustees hired Hannum under PAISD superintendent Dr. Sharon Doughty’s recommendation during its regular meeting on Wednesday, March 20. Staf photo by Jim DuboisDoughty recommended Hannum to the board after a committee composed of all PAISD principals and four teachers interviewed four different applicants and gave their opinions.
