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Al-Qaeda claims Algeria blasts
14/02/2007 08:44 - (SA)
Algiers - A group linked to al-Qaeda staged seven nearly simultaneous attacks targeting police in several towns east of Algiers, killing six and injuring almost 30, according to officials, police and hospital staff.
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 the Tuesday morning strikes in a telephone call to the Al-Jazeera television network and in a statement circulating on the internet.
The group allied itself with al-Qaeda last year, raising the stakes in the region's fight against terrorism.
The seven bombings, some car explosions, hit the Kabylie region between 04:00 and 10:00 on Tuesday morning, the state news agency APS said.
The apparently co-ordinated attacks surprised the North African country, which has steadily emerged from an Islamic insurgency that killed more than 150 000 during the 1990s. While scattered violence by the GSPC continues, such carefully planned strikes are rare in today's Algeria, an ally in the US-led war against terrorism.
The attackers' statement claimed casualties were much higher and accused the interior ministry of playing down the impact. The statement said the attacks targeted six police stations and "ended successfully".
Tuesday's attacks quashed Algerian authorities' claims that the GSPC lately had grown weaker, said Mohamed Darif, a terrorism expert at Morocco's Mohammedia University.
"This is to show that (the GSPC) is still capable of launching attacks in the heart of Algeria," Darif said.
The interior ministry said in a statement that six people were killed, two of them police officers, according to APS. The ministry also reported 13 injured, and said 10 of them were police.
Police and hospital staff reported more injured, totalling nearly 30.
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