Original author: Associated Press
Source: The Toronto Star
URL: [link]
Date: April 11, 2007
ALGIERS, Algeria – Bombs heavily damaged the prime minister's office and a police station Wednesday, killing at least 23 people and wounding about 160, the country's official news agency said. Al-Qaida's wing in North Africa claimed responsibility.
Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, who was unhurt, called the attack a "cowardly, criminal terrorist act" as he spoke to reporters outside his wrecked offices.
The attacks were a devastating setback for the North African country's efforts to close the chapter on its Islamic insurgency that has killed 200,000 people. After years of relative calm, the al-Qaida affiliate recently has recently waged several smaller attacks in the oil- and gas-rich country.
According to Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, a spokesman for al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were carried out by three suicide bombers in trucks packed with explosives. The spokesman said the bombers targeted three sites: the government headquarters in Algiers and the Interpol offices and a special police forces building in the suburb of Bab Ezzouar.Belkhadem declined to say how many had been killed or wounded. The official APS agency said at least 23 people were killed and 160 wounded in the two attacks, but gave no breakdown. The other bombing targeted the police station of Bab Ezzouar, east of the capital, Algiers, on the road to its airport.
Witnesses said at least one of the attacks appeared to have been a car bomb.
A charred, wrecked car lay on the pavement about 30 metres from the gates of the government building, a modern white, block-like high-rise that also houses the Interior Ministry.
On Tuesday in neighbouring Morocco, police surrounded a building in Casablanca where four terrorism suspects were holed up, causing three to flee and blow themselves up with explosives. The fourth was shot to death by a police sharpshooter as he apparently tried to detonate his bomb. A police officer was killed and 10 people, including a young child and a policeman, suffered injuries.
Since five suicide bombings that killed 45 people in Morocco in May 2003, police have pursued an unprecedented crackdown on suspected militants, arresting thousands of people, including some accused of working with al-Qaida and its affiliates to plot attacks in Morocco and abroad.
Algeria's insurgency broke out in 1992, after the army cancelled legislative elections that an Islamic party appeared set to win.
Since then, violence related to the insurgency has left an estimated 200,000 dead, according to the government.
Military crackdowns and amnesty offers had turned them into a ragtag assembly of fighters in rural hideouts, and for several years, the government appeared to have them basically under control.
Algeria's main militant group recently changed its name to Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa and began targeting foreigners, signs that the country's dwindling ranks of Islamic fighters were regrouping.
The latest attacks, especially on Belkhadem's office, showed that the militants are far from beaten, even though experts say that they number perhaps no more than several hundred people.
Belkhadem expressed bitterness at insurgents who refused the amnesty offers.
"The Algerian people stretched out a hand to them, and they respond with a terrorist act," he said.
Al-Jazeera said its office in Rabat, Morocco, received a telephone call from a spokesman for al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, identified as Abu Mohammed Salah, who claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The caller said that the explosions were carried out by three al-Qaeda members in trucks "filled" with explosives. His claims could not be independently confirmed.
"We won't rest until every inch of Islamic land is liberated from foreign forces," the spokesman said in a recording of the phone call played on Al-Jazeera.
On an Islamic militant website, the group showed pictures of the three suicide bombers who allegedly carried out the attack, codenamed the "Badr Raid," after a famed 7th century battle by the Prophet Muhammad and the first Muslims against his opponents, according to Al-Jazeera and the SITE Institute, a U.S. group that monitors militants' messages.
In the photos, provided by the SITE Institute, each bomber – identified as Muadh bin Jabal, al-Zubair Abu Sajda and Abu Dajjana – was shown sitting with automatic rifles propped on the wall on either side of him. Abu Sajda and Abu Dajjana had green scarves covering their faces, showing only their eyes. Abu Sajda and bin Jabal were wearing suicide vests.
Fayza Kebdi, a lawyer who works in an office opposite the government building, said the blast, about 10:45 a.m. local time, shattered her windows and threw her husband clear across the room.
"We thought the years of terrorism were over," she said. "We thought that everything was back to normal. But now, the fear is coming back."
The attacks were the deadliest to hit the Algiers area since 2002, when a bomb in a market killed 38 people and injured 80.
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