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Al Qaeda Claims Recent Algiers And Boumerdes Bombings

(AQIM)
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) released claiming responsibility for the recent bomb attacks in Algiers and Boumerdes in a statement it posted on the Internet along with pictures of the two suicide bombers.

The group claimed the three attacks killed two Frenchmen and 37 Algerian soldiers and warned of further attacks against the Algerian government forces. It dedicated the operation to one of its commanders called Abdul Rahman al Thulathi, who was killed by Algerian security forces.

The statement said the first attack on June 4th, against a casern of the Algerian Republican guards in the Kaifan tower in the capital, was carried out by Yusuf Abu Baseer Al Aasmi, who blew himself at the main gate. A few moments later, the second suicide bomber Ibrahim Al Adham, blew himself up in a in the café killing a group of soldiers who were sitting there.

The group says a bomb was used in the second operation on June 5th to attack targeted an army convoy in Raas Janaat (Boumerdes). The third operation targeted two Frenchmen working for Razel in Beni Imraan (Boumerdes) according to the statement.

AQIM was created out of militant Algerian group, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC). In Sept. of 2006, al Qaeda's number two Ayman al Zawahri announced in a videotape that the terror group's leader Osama bin Laden had approved of the group's merger with al Qaeda.

The group has been responsible for numerous attacks and kidnappings in North Africa since January 2007. They were held responsible for the deadly Algiers bombings of April and December of 2007. Moreover, the group succeeded in expanding its operations beyond the Algerian frontiers, murdering French tourists in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott in December 2007 and kidnapping two Austrian tourists in Tunisia last February.

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