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(CNN) -- After three days of chaos, drama and an unknown number of deaths, Algerian special forces held their fire Saturday in the hostage crisis at a gas facility in the nation's remote eastern desert.

Survivors described harrowing escapes from Islamic militants who attacked the site early Wednesday. Some invented disguises, others sneaked to safety with locals, and at least one ran for his life with plastic explosives strapped around his neck.

Norway's Statoil, one of the firms operating the In Amenas gas plant, said two more of its workers had been "brought to safety" Saturday.

However, six are still unaccounted for as what the company describes as "an unimaginable tragedy" grinds on with no resolution in sight and a lot of conflicting information about what's happening on the ground.

"All of those involved have experienced extreme stress," Statoil said, adding that it was doing all it could to support workers and their families.

The fate of perhaps 30 or more foreign workers remains unclear.

As of Friday, six Americans were freed or escaped, a U.S. official said. The official provided no other information about their status or whereabouts. Other Americans were unaccounted for.

Algerian troops staged a military offensive Thursday that some nations criticized as endangering the lives of the hostages.

On Friday evening, they were trying a different tack, the state-run Algerian Press Service reported.

"The special forces ... are still seeking a peaceful settlement before neutralizing the terrorist group currently entrenched in the refinery, and free a group of hostages who are still detained," it said.

It was not clear how many hostages were seized by the Islamist militants and how many were being held. Thursday's military operation ended with 650 hostages -- including 100 foreigners -- freed, while at least 12 Algerian and foreign workers were killed, the Algerian Press Service reported in what it said was a "provisional toll."

At least one American, identified as Frederick Buttaccio is among the dead, Nuland said, as well as a French national and a Briton.

In addition, 18 of the attackers were "neutralized," APS said.

At least 30 foreign workers were unaccounted for, according to the official media report.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday that significantly fewer than 30 of his countrymen remained hostage.

There are also 14 Japanese unaccounted for, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said. And Malaysia's state-run news agency reported Thursday that two of its citizens were held captive.

A spokesman for Moktar Belmoktar, a veteran jihadist who leads the Brigade of the Masked Ones -- a militant group associated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb -- reportedly offered to free U.S. hostages in exchange for two prisoners.

The prisoners are Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who orchestrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman jailed in the United States on terrorism charges, the spokesman said in an interview with a private Mauritanian news agency.

Asked Friday about the offer, Nuland rejected it, restating U.S. policy of not negotiating with terrorists.

Opinion: Algeria situation is a wake-up call for the U.S.

A dangerous escape

The incident began when the militants -- apparently angry about Algeria's support in a rout of their comrades in neighboring Mali -- targeted the gas field, which is jointly run by Algeria's state oil company, Statoil and Britain's BP.

At the start of the siege, the militants gathered the Westerners into a group and tied them up, survivors said.

The kidnappers were equipped with AK-47 rifles and put explosive-laden vests on some hostages, a U.S. State Department official said.

Some escaped by disguising themselves, according to Regis Arnoux, who runs a catering firm at the site and had spoken with some of his 150 employees who were freed. He said they were all traumatized.

Some Algerian hostages were free to walk around the site but not to leave, Arnoux said. Still, a number of them escaped, he said.

As the Algerian military launched its operation Thursday, the militants moved some hostages, according to one survivor's account.

With plastic explosives strapped around their necks, these captives were blindfolded and gagged before being loaded into five Jeeps, according to the brother of former hostage Stephen McFaul.

McFaul, with the explosives still around his neck, escaped after the vehicle he was in -- one of several targeted by Algerian fighters -- crashed, his brother said from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

"I haven't seen my mother move as fast in all my life, and my mother smile as much, hugging each other," Brian McFaul said upon his family hearing his brother was safe. "... You couldn't describe the feeling."

McFaul said the other four Jeeps were "wiped out" in an explosion, and his brother believed the hostages inside did not survive.

Nations mobilize to help citizens caught up in crisis

A U.S. military C-130 plane flew 12 people who were wounded in the ordeal out of Algeria on Friday, a U.S. defense official said. None of them were Americans, though efforts continue to evacuate freed Americans.

Britain has sent trauma experts and consular affairs officers who can issue emergency passports to a location about 450 kilometers (280 miles) away from the plant, a Foreign Office official said.

BP said Friday that a "small number of BP employees" were unaccounted for.

Statoil said that while the situation of six of its staff was unclear, 11 -- including five who escaped -- were safe. Four Norwegians and a Canadian with that oil firm were in an airport hotel in Bergen, Norway, after being taken from Algeria, Statoil said.

Both BP and Statoil were pulling their personnel out of Algeria, which is Africa's largest natural gas producer and a major supplier of natural gas to Europe.

France's foreign ministry said that, in addition to one death, three of its citizens were rescued.

Tough questions amid Algerian military operation

Algeria faces tough questions from governments of the kidnapped nationals over its handling of the crisis. Neither the United States nor Britain, for instance, was told in advance about Algeria's military operation Thursday.

Nations with citizens involved issued a plea to the Algerians, urging them to be cautious and make the hostages' safety their priority.

Algeria said it acted out of a sense of urgency after noticing hostages being moved toward "a neighboring country," where kidnappers could use them "as a means of blackmail with criminal intent," Communications Minister Mohamed Said told state television.

Belmoktar, the man behind the group claiming responsibility for the attack and kidnappings, is known for seizing hostages.

French counterterrorism forces have long targeted Belmoktar, an Algerian who lost an eye fighting in Afghanistan in his teens.

The militants said they carried out the operation because Algeria allowed French forces to use its airspace in attacking Islamist militants in Mali.

CNN's Barbara Starr, Laura Smith-Spark, Mike Mount, Joe Sutton, Elwyn Lopez, Frederik Pleitgen, Dan Rivers, Mitra Mobasherat, Saskya Vandoorne, Laura Perez Maestro, Junko Ogura, Dheepthi Namasivayam, Saad Abedine, Elise Labott and Tim Lister contributed to this report, as did journalists Peter Taggart from Belfast and Said Ben Ali from Algiers.