Search Goes On For Algerian Terror Victims

Official Death Toll At 30, Other Sources Say Al Qaeda Bombs Killed Many More

(CBS/AP)  Emergency workers searched for bodies and survivors Wednesday after twin truck bombings by an affiliate of al Qaeda targeted U.N. offices and a government building in Algiers, killing at least 30 people.

The final death toll remained uncertain, with some estimates climbing well above the official Algerian government figures.

Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci said on France's Europe-1 radio Wednesday morning that the official death toll was 30, up from 26 Tuesday night, after emergency workers spent the night delving beneath the remains of gutted buildings for victims.

As many as 11 U.N. workers, possible more, were killed, U.N. officials said.

Al Qaeda's self-styled North African branch, in a posting on a militant Web site, said two suicide bombers attacked the buildings Tuesday with trucks carrying 1,760 pounds of explosives each.

It described the U.N. offices as "the headquarters of the international infidels' den." The other target, Algeria's Constitutional Council, rules on the constitutionality of laws and oversees elections.

The targeting of United Nations offices was a new development in Algeria's 15-year battle against Islamic insurgents, who previously focused their hate on symbols of Algeria's military-backed government and civilians.

U.N. officials in Geneva said it was the worst single attack against United Nations staff and facilities since August 2003, when the global body's headquarters in Baghdad were hit by a truck laden with explosives. That attack killed 22 people, including the top U.N. envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and was blamed on al Qaeda fighters in Iraq.

After Tuesday's attack in Algiers, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate review of U.N. security precautions and policies in Algeria and elsewhere.

The U.N. offices are in the upscale Hydra neighborhood of Algiers, which houses many foreign embassies and has a substantial foreign population.

The U.S. Embassy said it was "implementing more robust security procedures while we assess the current security situation," according to a statement on its Web site. The Embassy was open Wednesday.

The French Embassy urged "great vigilance" and said that though violence had largely died down in recent years, "recent attacks show that it is time for a return to the most extreme prudence."

"The renewed threat by al Qaeda against French interests in North Africa cannot be ignored," the embassy said on its Web site.

Al Qaeda has called for attacks on French and Spanish interests in North Africa. French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Algeria last week.

Algerian Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said the government was "certain" that al Qaeda's North Africa affiliate - formerly known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, or GSPC - "was behind the attack."

Tuesday's bombings came amid an increasing campaign of violence (Click for timeline) by the North African franchise of Osama bin Laden's terror group.

Al Qaeda's media operation released a half-hour long video on Nov. 3, 2007, obtained by CBS News, titled, "Unity of the Ranks," featuring an audio statement by the group's second in command, Ayman Zawahiri, and a and field commander with ties to North Africa, Abu Laith al-Libi.

In the tape, Zawahiri called for attacks on Western interests throughout North Africa, and urged militants to overthrow the leaders of Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco.

Fighters arrested after previous Algerian bombings in April had identified the U.N. offices and the council building as future targets, Zerhouni said, according to the official APS news agency.

The Interior Ministry said Tuesday night that 26 had died and that 177 people were wounded. The foreign minister said Wednesday that 26 remained in hospitals for further treatment.

Other sources said the toll was higher. An official at the civil protection agency said 45 people were killed. A doctor at an Algiers hospital who said he was in contact with staff at other area hospitals said the death toll was at least 60.

At least 11 United Nations employees were believed to have been among those killed, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in New York on Tuesday night.

"There are still a number of people unaccounted for, a number of people trapped under the rubble," Okabe said. About 175 U.N. employees worked in Algeria.

The attack drew swift international condemnation.

Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa is thought to have only several hundred fighters but has resisted Algerian security sweeps. Its members have rejected amnesty offers and have turned their sights from toppling the government to waging holy war and fighting Western interests.

Algeria has been battling Islamic insurgents since the early 1990s, when the army canceled the second round of the country's first multiparty elections, stepping in to prevent likely victory by an Islamic fundamentalist party.

Islamist armed groups then turned to force to overthrow the government, with up to 200,000 people killed in the ensuing violence.

[libsluvsuvs]

Posted by lastdance7 at 11:54 AM : Dec 12, 2007
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IF YOU HAVE THE CHANCE..can you tell us all about Al queda''s instruction manual....The Koran is like the Mein Kampf

[libsluvsuvs]

Whay is Algeria being terrorized? they are not in Iraq!


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Posted by hillaryin08 at 12:22 PM : Dec 12, 2007
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because algerians are resisting Al Queda and its radical ideology...

Islamic Radical Ideology DOES NOT KNOW ANY BOUNDERIES..IT DOES NOT KNOW ANY RACE..IT DOES NOT KNOW THE COLOR OF SKIN..THAT my liberal friend is SOMETHING YOU NEED TO DRILL INTO YOUR HEAD.

[bizzzz-2009]

WHATS CONVENIENT ABOUT CAIR GIVING MONEY IS THAT THEY CAN DO IT WITH LOW OR NO PROFILE WHATSOEVER. IT%u2019S PERFECT SITUATION FOR A GROUP THAT WANTS TO APPEASE THEIR DETRACTORS AND NOT ACTIVELY OR VISIBLY TAKE A POSITION ON AN ISSUE LIKE TERRORISM OR RADICAL ISLAM. THE WHOLE TIME, THEY LAUGH AT OUR INSATIABLE GREED.

[bizzzz-2009]

In five years since 9 11, I have NOT seen ONE organized demonstration by Muslim Americans condemning radical Islam or even terrorists, NOT ONE. Surely Muslims know how to demonstrate. You see them gather by the thousands and thousands for the return of Bhutto in Pakistan. You see them gather by the thousands in Gaza to protest Israeli oppression, and you see them gather by the thousands at parades for Hezzbollah in Tehran.
But in a free society like the US, where demonstrations are both lawful and encouraged, NOT ONE Muslim demonstration condemning terrorists. Instead organizations like CAIR STATE THEY DENOUNCE TERRORIST ACTS AND RADICAL ISLAM BY DONATING MONEY TO THIS OR THAT ORGANIZATION.
THE SAD THING IS, THEIR MONEY SILENCES US. THE DAY AMERICANS STOP TAKING MONEY FROM MUSLIMS, THE DAY WE AMERICANS TELL MUSLIMS " YOUR MONEY ISN''T GOOD HERE, WE WANT ACTION" WILL BE THE DAY I START BELIVING THAT NOT ALL MUSLIMS ARE JIHADISTS WANTING TO TURN AMERICA INTO A ISLAMIC STATE.

[hillaryin08]

Whay is Algeria being terrorized? they are not in Iraq!

[zootallures2]

Al Qaeda''s self-styled North African branch...
It described the U.N. offices as "the headquarters of the international infidels'' den." ....

LOL! So why don''t they bomb a CFR meeting or the Bilderburg group? Or Rothschild''s or Rockefellar''s house?