Algeria's least bloody Ramadan

2008-09-29 20:19

Algiers - Algeria has enjoyed its least bloody Ramadan since Islamist violence emerged in 1992, with the Muslim holy month ending this week with one attack that left three people dead, against some 60 a year ago.

A suicide car bombing near the eastern town of Dellys on Sunday killed three people in the only such attack since Ramadan started on September 1 amid a heavy deployment of security forces in the country's largest cities.

The month-long fasting month, which ends on Tuesday or on Wednesday, was preceded by a series of suicide attacks and ambushes in eastern Algeria, with the deadliest killing 48 people at a police academy near Algiers on August 19.

Al-Qaeda's north African offshoot, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), claimed the attacks, saying they were in retaliation for the army's killing of 12 of its members in early October.

The bloodshed in August triggered fears that Islamic extremists would launch assaults on Algerian cities during Ramadan, repeating the violence that left about 60 people dead last year.

The government deployed security forces to Algiers and other big cities, where cafes are packed in the evening with people breaking their fast, and set up roadblocks to check cars for bombs.

The army also scoured the region of Kabylie, the country's last Islamist bastion, to get rid of extremists during the month of September, while support groups were dismantled, according to local media.

Three armed Islamists were killed by security forces in eastern Algeria on Saturday, and an alleged leader of AQIM on September 5.

Islamic radicals have fought back, wounding four police officers in a bombing near the eastern city of Tizi Ouzou on September 14, according to local media.

An armed group killed a gendarme and wounded two others in Ain Defla, west of Algiers, last Wednesday.

At least three local security guards were also killed in the attacks.

Surrender or die

Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia issued a stark warning to Islamic extremists at the onset of Ramadan.

"We will fight them to the end. They have two choices: to surrender and take advantage of national reconciliation or be killed for the crimes they are committing," Ouyahia said.

A peace and reconciliation charter, which came into effect in February 2006, offers amnesty to armed militants who surrender to the Algerian authorities.

It has led to the release of more than 2 000 people convicted of terrorism offences and the surrender of some 300 armed militants.

AQIM chief Abu Musab Abdul Wadud called on north African Muslims last week to join the jihad, or holy war, against the region's regimes.

"Unite around the jihad that is the only alternative power to the apostate regimes that dominate our lands," he said in an audio speech posted on Islamist militant websites, the SITE Intelligence Group said.

- AFP