Truck bomb kills eight soldiers in Algeria

Reuters ^ | 07/11/07 | Lamine Chikhi

[TexKat]

LAKHDARIA, Algeria (Reuters) - A truck bomb exploded at an Algerian army barracks on Wednesday, killing eight soldiers in the deadliest attack claimed by al Qaeda's north Africa wing since a triple suicide bombing in April.

The blast in Lakhdaria village 120 km (75 miles) east of the capital in the troubled Kabylie region happened hours before the opening in Algiers of the All Africa Games, a prestigious sports event regarded as Africa's Olympics which Algeria is hosting.

"I heard a terrible explosion," said the owner of a coffee shop in Lakhdaria, a settlement surrounded by forested mountains that have long served as a hideouts for Islamist rebels seeking to set up Islamic rule in the gas exporting OPEC member state.

"I first thought it was an earthquake but soon I found out it was an attack against the barracks."

The 0530 GMT blast was caused by a truck bomb and the eight dead and 23 wounded were soldiers, the official APS news agency reported security sources as saying.

It made no mention of the attackers, but residents, citing unconfirmed reports, said the assault was carried out by a suicide bomber who gained access to the barracks by posing as the driver of a food delivery truck.

Al Jazeera television said al Qaeda's north Africa wing, the al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was a suicide mission.

"Our martyr was able to enter into the heart of the (barracks) and set off the explosion there," said a spokesman of al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb in an audio tape.

The spokesman named the suicide attacker as Suhail Abu Malih and said more than one tonne (2,200 lb) of explosives were used.

If confirmed, the highly unusual use of a suicide bomber would be the first since a triple suicide attack killed 33 people in Algiers on April 11. Those attacks were also claimed by al Qaeda's north Africa wing.

SUICIDE BOMBERS

This attack will not prevent us from continuing our relentless fight against terrorism," Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni told state radio.

Up to 200,000 people have been killed in political bloodshed in Algeria since 1992 when supporters of a now-outlawed Muslim fundamentalist party that was poised to win elections that year subsequently launched an armed rebellion against the state.

The violence has subsided in recent years but sputters on mainly in Kabylie and nearby areas.

A bomb exploded on July 5 near a car carrying the governor of Kabylie's Tizi Ouzou area in the first apparent bid in years to assassinate a top local official. A policeman was wounded.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika asked the army last week to step up attacks on rebels, calling them "enemies of the people."

Dozens of Islamist guerrillas remain at large in Kabylie, shielded by criminal and family links and the remoteness of the area. The region is also a bastion of Algeria's Berber speakers, who have long had tense ties with the authorities, protesting at what they see as discrimination by the Arab majority.

Security expert Anis Rahmani said the attack, three months to the day after the April 11 blasts, showed al Qaeda was now firmly set on using suicide bombers in the Muslim country.

The April 11 blasts were the first intended suicide bomb attacks since Algeria's violence began in 1992, journalists say.

"The suicide attack was expected, particularly after the security services succeeded in preventing any (suicide attacks) in the intervening 90 days," said Rahmani.

[samtheman]

but it’s not global

and it’s not terror

and it’s not a war

just ask anybody

any commie-traitor in congress

or any commie-traitor in the media

they’ll tell you

it’s just a bumper sticker

[TexKat]

Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for a bombing in Algiers in April

Many dead in Algeria suicide blast

A suicide car bomb has killed at least eight people and wounded 30 near an Algerian military barracks southeast of the capital.

The attack occurred on Wednesday in the town of Lakhdaria, about 120km southeast of Algiers in the region of Kabylie, local media and witnesses reported.

Most of the injured were reported to be working at the barracks.

The owner of a coffee shop in Lakhdaria said: "I heard a terrible explosion. I first thought it was an earthquake but soon I found out it was an attack against the barracks."

Games marred

The bombing came on the same day as the opening of the Africa Games, one of the continent's biggest sporting events, which is taking place in Algiers and also in Blida and Boumerdes, two towns in Kabylie.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

However, an al-Qaeda-aligned armed group previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) has claimed responsibility for similar attacks in recent months, including a triple suicide bombing in Algiers that killed 33 people on April 11.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the Algerian president, asked the army in early July to step up attacks on Islamist fighters, saying they were "enemies of the people".

[bnelson44]

The long war (powerpoint presentation):

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/files/jcslongwar_vicedirectorforstratplansandpolicy_j5.ppt

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Another sancutary attempt,....they are getting run out of their earlier attempts:

Taliban Fight Each Other Over Traditions

[shagbark]

Now wait just a minute. Why didn’t Bush tell us Algeria was also helping us in Iraq?

[Levante]

That clown looks like he’s taking a dump.

Of course, that’s impossible, because Al-Queerda is full of sh#t.

[Marine_Uncle]

The Algerian government has been going after various radical Islamic groups for a while now as the article mentions. Some *ssholes got lucky this time.

[bsaunders]

Another attack caused by those imperial Zionists in Israel and their pawn, the Great Satan, America. /sarcasm