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Suicide bombs kill 24

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 12, 2007

ALGIERS, Algeria - Al-Qaida's new wing in North Africa claimed responsibility for suicide bombings that ripped through the prime minister's office and a police station on Wednesday, killing at least 24 people.

One car bomb tore holes in the walls of the prime minister's office, where people in bloodstained clothes stumbled toward ambulances. Two other vehicles exploded outside a police station east of the capital, blasting craters into the ground and damaging the building. Two hundred twenty-two people were wounded.

The group that claimed responsibility, al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, has carried out a series of recent bombings jeopardizing Algeria's tentative peace. The country, a staunch U.S. ally in the war against terror, has been trying to turn the page on a 15-year Islamic insurgency that killed 200,000 people.

Until recently, the peace efforts seemed successful: Military crackdowns and amnesty offers had turned Algeria's militants into a ragtag assembly of fighters in rural hideouts.

But late last year, the main Algerian militant group, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, changed its name to al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa and began targeting foreigners - signs the dwindling ranks of Islamic fighters were regrouping.

The latest attacks were the deadliest in the Algiers region since 2002, when a bomb in a suburban market killed 38 and wounded 80. The bombing of the prime minister's office was among the most brazen attacks in Algerian history.

Wednesday's date, April 11, has potentially symbolic meaning: Attacks on the 11th day of the month are a hallmark of al-Qaida and its admirers.

Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, who was not in his office during the attack, called the bombings a "cowardly, criminal terrorist act" as he spoke to reporters outside the wrecked building. Parts of six floors were ripped away, and the iron gates outside were bent by the blast's force.

The government did not name suspects. But Al-Jazeera television reported receiving a call from a spokesman for al-Qaida's North Africa wing saying three suicide bombers in vehicles packed with explosives carried out the attacks.

The bombings came one day after three suspected terrorists in neighboring Morocco blew themselves up as police were closing in, and a fourth was shot and killed by police while he appeared to be preparing to detonate his explosives.

In Morocco, Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa said Moroccan investigators have not established links between the violence there and in Algeria but "we don't rule it out."

[Last modified April 12, 2007, 02:01:16]