US Knew 'Something Big' Was Coming Before Algeria Crisis The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said that before the deadly Algerian hostage crisis, the U.S. had several reports that "something big" was coming against a Western target -- but not the details the government needed to prevent it. Just like the Benghazi event, we had lots of threat streams... There are reports coming in from all different types of sources saying, 'Something big is going to happen,'" Rep. Mike Rogers (R.-Mich.) told ABC News Sunday. We didn't know for sure, for certain it would be this particular place under those circumstances, but we knew that they were trying to find a... Western target, which this clearly was. Roger's comments came a day after the Algerian military forced a bloody end to the four-day hostage crisis at a BP joint-venture facility in the Sahara Saturday. Twenty-nine hostage-takers were killed and three arrested in that operation, according to Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal. Thirty-seven hostages of many nationalities were also killed, some executed by the terrorists with shots to the head, he said. At least one American hostage was among the dead. Several others managed to escape the facility, but the fate of two remains unknown. Late Sunday a video emerged that was reportedly shot during the crisis in which the leader of the terrorists, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, claimed the "blessed" hostage taking as a victory for al Qaeda and said it was done to force the West to abandon the recent French-led military intervention in Mali. The group also previously demanded that the U.S. release Omar Abdel-Rahman, the man who planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Before the Algerian counter-attack, one of the hostage-takers, Abdel Rahman el-Nigeri, reportedly singled out the Americans at the facility for "slaughter" should the terrorists not get what they wanted. "The Americans that are here, we will kill them," el-Nigeri said, according to an audio tape aired on Algeria's Ennahar TV. Today a spokesperson for Belmokhtar's group reportedly told London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Alawsat that despite the terrorists killed and no public concession concerning Mali, he considered the operation "successful by all standards." Successful or not, Rogers said the incident was evidence of a real national security threat that has emerged from al Qaeda in north Africa. Clearly this is a growing threat in the region. They feel emboldened," he said, citing the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya in September 2012. It can't just be Algeria. It has to be the whole northern Africa region and it needs to be a cohesive policy that is well-coordinated that covers all the different problems that we're finding in northern Africa... It really is naive to believe this isn't getting worse. Ned Berkowitz contributed to this report.