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Algeria to bury 19 bomb victims
07/09/2007 13:15 - (SA)
Algiers - Residents of the town of Batna in eastern Algeria prepared on Friday to bury the victims of a suicide bombing aimed at the president that killed 19 people and wounded more than 107.
The interior ministry on Friday revised the death toll upwards from 15 killed and 74 wounded, given by national television after the attack on Thursday night.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was not at the scene of the blast, but visited survivors in hospital late on Thursday, extended his stay in Batna to attend the funerals of those killed.
The suicide bomber struck only five months after attacks claimed by al-Qaeda's offshoot in North Africa that killed at least 43 people and injured scores.
Civil war claims 150 000
The attacker was part of a crowd awaiting a presidential visit in the centre of the town. Witnesses quoted by national television said the bomb was hidden in a plastic bag.
His excitable behaviour alerted the crowd and he set off the bomb before the president arrived, said reports. Bouteflika said late on Thursday that he would not let such attacks divert him from his political goals.
The North African nation was still recovering from a civil war in the 1990s that left more than 150 000 dead.
The president said: "I will not for a single moment renounce the political project built on national reconciliation and security for all Algerians."
Under Bouteflika's policy, a presidential pardon was offered to Islamist militants who surrendered. About 2 000 Islamists had been freed from prison and the authorities said that about 300 militants had given themselves up.
National reconciliation policy
In Batna on Friday, local people were in shock as they prepared to bury the dead. Liaimine, a journalist who witnessed the attack, said: "The sight of the torn apart bodies of the victims was terrifying."
Meanwhile, Algeria's political class denounced the attack as "cowardly", "odious" and contrary to the values of Islam. Politicians called for the continuation of Bouteflika's national reconciliation policy alongside his anti-terrorism strategy.
Algerian authorities had recently hardened their condemnation of armed Islamists who refused to join the programme. Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said: "They should give themselves up or perish."
On Thursday, the president emphasised that such attacks by militants "have absolutely nothing in common with the noble values of Islam".
French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned the bombing as "barbaric and senseless violence".
The blasts in Algeria had raised a spectre of a return to the violence of the 1990s that pitted the authorities against the hardline Armed Islamic Groups (GIA) and left more than 150 000 dead.
The murderous conflict was touched off by the cancellation of multi-party elections in 1992 that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) had won.
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