Car bomb kills 4 Algerian cops
2008-01-03 08:28
Algiers - A car bomb exploded near a police station in a town east of the Algerian capital, killing at least four officers and injuring 20 people, said officials and witnesses said. A news report said an al-Qaeda branch claimed responsibility.
The blast on Wednesday followed twin suicide bombings on December 11 at the United Nations offices and a government building that killed at least 37 people in the capital of Algiers.
A local journalist and another resident described the car speeding toward the police station and exploding. The two, who refused to be identified, citing safety concerns, said the attack appeared to be a suicide bombing.
The interior ministry said the attack killed at least four police officers and injured 20 other people, including eight officers.
Al-Qaeda claims attack
The ministry provided no details other than saying that the bombing was close to the police station in Naciria, about 70km east of the capital, Algiers.
The explosion tore off the front of the police station and damaged neighbouring buildings. Security forces cordoned off the rubble-strewn ruins.
The Al-Arabiya satellite TV channel reported that al-Qaeda's North Africa branch had claimed the attack.
The group, known as al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa, emerged out of an alliance between Osama bin Laden's international terror network and an Algerian Islamist movement known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat.
Algeria was jittery after double December 11 suicide bombings that killed at least 37 and tore apart two UN buildings in Algiers and blew the facade off a government building. It was the first time an international organisation had been targeted in Algeria.
That attack and suicide bombings in Algiers in April were also claimed by al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa.
Cars packed with explosives
Security forces had been on maximum alert since earlier this week, after three trucks were stolen in the Algiers region, Liberte newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The vehicles included a tanker used to transport fuel, and officials feared they might be used in suicide attacks, said the report.
Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa had increasingly used vehicles packed with explosives to make its strikes. In July, a suicide bomber blew up a truck inside a military barracks southeast of Algiers, killing 10 soldiers.
Two months later, at least 28 people died after an explosive-packed vehicle rammed into a coast guard barracks in the northern town of Dellys.
On Wednesday, meanwhile, Le Soir newspaper said security forces had detained the mastermind behind the April 11 attacks on the Algerian prime minister's office and a police station, which killed 33 people.
Police picked up the 28-year-old suspect at his Algiers home overnight on Saturday, the report quoted an unnamed security official as saying.
- AP