Free Republic

A poll by satellite TV Al Jazeera on the attacks in Algiers on December 11 has aroused bitter controversy in the Algerian media. "Are you in favour of Al Qaedàs attacks in Algeria?". This is the "scandalous question", daily Liberte writes, proposed by Qatar's channel Al Jazeera, "which makes of the terrorist apology one of the main editorial lines". The daily adds that more serious are the results: a total 54% of the TV audience has answered to be in favour of the double suicide bomb attack in Algiers against the seat of the UN and the Constitutional Court, "...

In a major strategic change, the Algerian arm of Al-Qaeda appears to be using terrorists older than 60 to carry out its attacks. That is the finding to have emerged from early analysis of the dual bombings that struck Algiers on Tuesday. Arab media and analysts have spoken of the "return of the elderly" to describe the strategic change by Al-Qaeda's Branch in the Islamic Maghreb (BAQMI) that claimed responsibility for the bombings in the Algerian capital. The Algerian government said that at least 26 people were killed and more than 170 wounded by the two bombs. However hospital sources...

Two car bombs struck central Algiers yesterday, killing up to 67 people, destroying United Nations offices and targeting a bus full of law students outside the Supreme Court in a coordinated strike blamed on al-Qaeda. The destruction raised the spectre of a return to the civil war that ravaged the North African country in the 1990s. At least two of the dead were foreigners — a Senegalese and a Dane working for the UN. As rescuers pulled out six people alive from the rubble, the UN said that at least 11 of its employees had died. More than 170 people...

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) - Two truck bombs set off in quick succession sheared off the fronts of U.N. offices and a government building in Algeria's capital Tuesday, killing at least 26 people and wounding nearly 200 in an attack claimed by an affiliate of al-Qaida. Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, in a posting on a militant Web site, called the U.N. offices "the headquarters of the international infidels' den." A U.N. official said at least 11 of its employees died. The bombs exploded 10 minutes apart around 9:30 a.m., devastating the U.N. refugee agency and other U.N. offices along a...

ALGIERS (Reuters) - The deputy chief of al Qaeda's North Africa wing, believed to be the group's operational leader, was killed along with two other rebels in a gun battle with Algerian troops, local newspapers said on Tuesday. Hareg Zoheir, also known as Sofiane Abu Fasila, was said to be the second-in-command of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and suspected of being behind planning most of the suicide bombings in Algeria in the recent months. He was shot dead on Sunday at a check point in the eastern region of Tzizi Ouzou, the country's leading dailies reported. "Sofiane is...

Members of al-Qaeda's North Africa wing say they carried out two suicide attacks that have killed at least 50 people in Algeria in the past two days. The group, which calls itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, made the claim in an internet statement. In the latest attack, at least 30 people died on Saturday when a truck packed with explosives drove into a naval barracks in the port of Dellys. Authorities in Algeria have called for rallies against violence on Sunday. The UN and EU condemned the bombings. The chairman of the UN Security Council, Jean-Maurice Ripert, called Saturday's...

A booby-trapped car went off at an army barracks Saturday, killing at least 28 people and wounding many more, security services said, according to the AP. The bomb exploded in the town of Dellys, about 30 miles from Algiers, they said. It went off as the local coast guard was taking part in the morning flag-raising ceremony. All the victims were coast guard officials, who are part of Algeria's armed forces, hospital officials said. The latest blast comes just two days after 20 people died in a suicide bomb attack in Batna. That bomb exploded in a crowd awaiting a...

At least 28 people have been killed and some 60 injured in a car bomb attack on an Algerian naval barracks in Dellys, 100km (62 miles) east of Algiers. It comes just two days after a suicide bomb attack left at least 20 people dead, including the bomber, in Batna. That bomb exploded in a crowd awaiting a visit to the town by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He later blamed Islamic militants for the attack, but there has been no claim of responsibility for either attack. 'Islamic militants' Appearing on television soon after the Batna incident, Mr Bouteflika said Islamic militants...

ALGIERS, Algeria (Reuters) -- Algerian security forces have killed the mastermind of suicide bombings including a triple attack in Algiers in April that claimed 33 lives, a government-run newspaper reported on Thursday. Rachid Sid Ali, a military adviser to the al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, was killed on July 30 in the troubled Kabylie region east of Algiers, El Moudjahid said. He was killed along with his aide Haroun El Achaachi "thanks to the help of the local population of Iboudranene" village near Kabylie's main town of Tizi Ouzou, the daily added, citing a security source. Attacks plotted...

Algiers, 2 Jan. (AKI) - Algerian police have arrested a man suspected of trying to re-establish al-Qaeda linked terrorism cells in the North African country, a local newspaper reports. Abu Bilal al-Albani was picked up when police stopped the car he and two Algerain nationals were travelling in, the daily "Youth" said.

Algiers, 16 August (AKI) - An extremist Algerian terror formation, the al-Qaeda aligned Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) on Tuesday issued a call to arms to French Muslims. "Muslim brothers, remember, we need your help," read a message posted by the GSPC to several Islamist websites. French Muslims are urged to carry out terrorist acts against Algerian business leaders, economists and diplomatic figures. "We are calling on devout Muslims in France - and elsewhere - because we want to punish the criminals who have tortured Muslims in Africa," the GSPC message read. "We especially ask Muslims in France...

Algiers, 21 June (AKI) - The Algerian authorities have arrested six Yemeni students they suspect of belonging to al-Qaeda and of having formed an al-Qaeda cell in the city of Annaba, eastern Algeria, the al-Khabar daily reported. The arrests, which security forces made over the past few days, followed phone taps of calls the men made on their line to Peshawar in Pakistan, as well as to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

<p>Algiers, Algeria, Jun. 28 (UPI) -- Algerian troops killed two armed Islamic militants in an ambush east of Algiers, security sources reported Monday.</p> <p>French-language daily Le Matin quoted the sources as saying the incident took place Sunday night only 35 kilometers (21 miles) east of the capital, when troops set up an ambush near the house of one of the militants.</p>

    Algerian Death a Blow to Al Qaeda Sahara AmbitionsMon Jun 21, 2004 01:36 PM ET By Paul de Bendern ALGIERS (Reuters) - The death of Algeria's top militant has robbed al Qaeda of a potentially key ally in north Africa and may pave the way for an end to the region's longest-running Islamic "holy war," analysts said on Monday. Nabil Sahraoui, leader of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), was killed in a gun battle with the armed forces along with his three top aides in eastern Algeria. His death is significant because he radicalized...

Algeria Kills Head of Group Allied to Al Qaeda ALGIERS (Reuters) - The Algerian armed forces said on Sunday they had killed the leader of a major Islamic rebel group with ties to al Qaeda."Units of the People's National Army, engaged in a vast anti-terrorist operation... have killed a number of criminals, including Nabil Sahraoui, alias Mustapha Abou Ibrahim, chief of the terrorist group known as the GSPC, as well as his (three) main aides," the army said in a statement obtained by Reuters. It said the militants died in the province of Bejaia, some 120 miles east of the...

ALGIERS (Reuters) - The Algerian armed forces said on Sunday they had killed the leader of a major Islamic rebel group with ties to al Qaeda. "Units of the People's National Army, engaged in a vast anti-terrorist operation... have killed a number of criminals, including Nabil Sahraoui, alias Mustapha Abou Ibrahim, chief of the terrorist group known as the GSPC, as well as his (three) main aides," the army said in a statement obtained by Reuters. It said the militants died in the province of Bejaia, some 120 miles east of the capital Algiers. It did not say when they...

Islamic Terrorists Sent Electronic Circuitry to Algeria for Bomb Manufacture The investigations opened into the March 11 attacks and the suicide of the members of the “main nucleus” of the killer cell continues to produce revealing data about their methods. One of the most recent clues obtained from police investigations has made it possible to determine that some of those now in jail spent their time in Spain extracting electronic circuitry from old home appliances (microwaves, freezers and washing machines, among others) to send them to Algeria. The purpose of this activity, according to sources consulted by ABC, was to...

PARIS (AP) - An extremist group known for deadly bombings and a brutal campaign to create an Islamic state in Algeria is moving to establish stronger ties to al-Qaida, raising fears the militants may launch terrorist attacks beyond their North African territory. The new leader of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, an armed organization whose decade-long aim has been to overthrow the Algerian government, declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden's network in the fall. At the time, it received little attention, but now authorities worry the Salafists could become a dangerous affiliate of al-Qaida, which has shown an...

LONDON [MENL] -- Al Qaida operatives have been relocating to the southern Sahara Desert in Algeria and have prepared secret bases near the border with Mali. Western intelligence sources said the Al Qaida effort was detected in early 2003 and has been aided by the Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call. They said the Salafist leadership has provided Al Qaida with hideouts and logistics in the mountain region. "The area is ideal for Al Qaida training and command functions," an intelligence source said. "The area is isolated and is located along the border with Mali, where there is no trace...

MADRID, Oct 27, 2003 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Al-Qaida is building secret bases in the Sahara in north Africa with the help of Algerian extremists, Western and Arab intelligence sources said Monday. The Spanish daily Periodico De Catalonia quoted the sources as saying the Sahara, stretching between Mauritania and southern Libya, has become a base for al-Qaida. "The desert of Mali, especially in the north, and the area near the Algerian border has become a base and meeting point for al-Qaida members who have fled from the Middle East region," an Algerian source said. "We know that many...