Al Qaeda Claims Deadly Algeria Blasts
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 Qaeda'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 nation's efforts to close the chapter on its Islamic insurgency that has killed 200,000 people. After years of relative calm, the al Qaeda affiliate recently has recently waged several smaller attacks in the oil- and gas-rich nation.
According to Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, a spokesman for al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were carried out by three suicide bombers in trucks packed with explosives.
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.
The explosion at about 10:45 local time caused windows to rattle at least a half-mile away.
Algeria's insurgency broke out in 1992, after the army canceled legislative elections that an Islamic party appeared set to win.
The military led a crackdown on militants hiding out in the country's brush and mountains, while the government tried to reconcile the nation with several amnesty offers to militants willing to turn in their weapons.
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.
Large-scale violence died down in the late 1990s, but skirmishes have surged in recent months as an al Qaeda affiliate carried out a deadly and carefully planned series of bomb attacks. Several targeted foreign workers.
A March 3 bombing of a bus carrying workers for a Russian company killed a Russian engineer and three Algerians. A December attack near Algiers and targeting a bus carrying foreign employees of an affiliate of Halliburton killed an Algerian and a Lebanese citizen.
Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa — the new name for the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French abbreviation GSPC — claimed responsibility for both attacks.
Wednesday's explosions came a day after three suspected terrorists blew themselves up in neighboring Morocco as police closed in on them and another suspect was shot dead by police while he was preparing to detonate his explosives.
A police officer was killed and a child was injured, officials said.
Tuesday's suicide blasts revived memories of five near-simultaneous bombings in May 2003 that killed 45 people in Morocco's commercial capital Casablanca, an event that brought fear of terrorism into many Moroccan minds for the first time.
Police in the North African kingdom have led an unprecedented crackdown on terror suspects since then — and Tuesday's police raid was triggered by an investigation into a cybercafe bombing last month.