Algeria unrest death toll rises
2007-10-01 12:02
Algiers - Seventy-five people died in political violence in Algeria in September, including 60 killed in suicide blasts, more than double the number in August, according to reports.
Among the suicide bombings was a failed assassination attempt on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Batna town southeast of Algiers.
The September toll compared to 29 in August and brought to 369 the number of people killed in violence in 2007 involving al- Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels and the security services.
Al-Qaeda's North Africa wing said it was behind suicide bombings in Dellys town, east of Algiers, on Sept 08 and a suicide blast in Batna on Sept 6 that killed 57 people.
The group also claimed a suicide car bomb attack on Sept 21 against a police convoy accompanying foreign workers, injuring nine people including two French and one Italian.
200 000 people killed
It was the second attack on foreigners since March after three Algerians and a Russian were killed in an attack on a bus carrying workers for a Russian gas pipeline construction firm.
Algeria was emerging from more than a decade of conflict that began after the military-backed government scrapped 1992 legislative elections a radical Islamic party was poised to win.
Authorities had feared an Iranian style revolution. Up to 200 000 people had been killed during the ensuing violence.
The bloodshed had subsided in recent years and last year the government freed more than 2 000 former Islamist guerrillas under an amnesty designed to put an end to the conflict.
But analysts said the emergence of suicide bombers, more lethal bomb-making technology, fund-raising from protection rackets and smuggling and an increasingly sophisticated web-based publicity machine had helped the rebels stay active.