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Driver killed in Algerian attack
11/12/2006 08:30 - (SA)
Algiers - Assailants hurled a bomb and fired at two vehicles carrying employees of an affiliate of the United States company, Halliburton, near Algiers, killing one driver, injuring nine and unnerving this oil-rich nation.
The driver was Algerian. According to the interior ministry, the injured included one American, Britons, one Canadian, one Lebanese employee and one Algerian.
Eight were treated in a nearby hospital and released, while one remained in hospital. The ministry didn't indicate the patient's nationality.
The attack on Sunday threatened to stain Algeria's international security image just as it was enjoying an oil boom and increased foreign investment after a bloody insurgency that wracked the North African nation in the 1990s.
BRC employees attacked
Several employees of BRC, or Brown & Root-Condor, were heading from their offices to a Sheraton Hotel, where they were housed in Bouchaoui, 15km west of Algiers, when they were attacked in the early evening.
BRC was an Algerian-registered company created in 1994 and now owned jointly by Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, and affiliates of Algerian state-owned oil company, Sonatrach. BRC had contracts with Algeria's oil and defence industries.
Most of the employees were in a bus following behind a security vehicle. Security officials said the assailants hurled a bomb at the first vehicle, immediately killing the driver.
According to witnesses, attackers later opened fire on the second bus, which quickly turned around and left before the gunmen dispersed.
Some of the BRC employees, visibly shaken, arrived at the hotel later on Sunday, but refused to speak to reporters.
Four Britons injured
The British foreign office said three Britons were "slightly injured" in the attack. The Algerian interior ministry said four Britons were injured.
Algerian security forces immediately fanned out through the surrounding area and blocked off roads.
The attack was seen as unusually bold because it was so near the capital, and because there was always heavy security in the area, which included exclusive housing complexes adjacent to a forest on the Mediterranean coast.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Algerian officials remained tightlipped about details of the incident and security measures taken in response.
Attacks on American targets were rare in Algeria. Politics in the country were strongly anti-American during the Cold War, but Algiers had allied with the United States in its war on terrorism since the September 11 2001 attacks, sharing intelligence and co-operating militarily.
Algerian militants previously had focused their wrath on home-grown security forces. Attacks on foreign targets in the past primarily hit the French, reflecting lingering bitterness at Algeria's former colonial ruler.
- AP
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