Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s suicide bombings that killed 30 people and injured more than 160 in Algeria’s capital. Suicide bombers in three explosives-laden cars were responsible, police said at the scene of the blasts.
The attacks raised fears the North African oil exporter is slipping back into the intense political violence of the 1990s.
One of the blasts ripped part of the facade off the prime minister’s headquarters in the centre of Algiers. A second bomb hit Bab Ezzouar on its eastern outskirts, the official APS news agency said.
At the government headquarters, a police officer who declined to be identified said: ”The attack was perpetrated by a suicide bomber who drove his car into the guard post.”
He said the bomber, in a Renault Clio, seemed to have carried out reconnaissance, driving round the roundabout at the entrance before returning 10 minutes later and driving at full speed into the sentry post.
In the eastern suburb of Bab Ezzouar, another police officer said suicide bombers driving two cars carried out the attack on a local police station.
The al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the bombings, al-Jazeera television reported.
The claim could not be immediately verified but the group, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, has taken responsibility for a number of deadly attacks on security forces and foreigners in Algeria since January.
Hospital sources put the toll from the two bombings at 30. Earlier, the official APS news agency put the toll at 17 dead with 82 wounded.
Leila Aissaoui (25) stood crying near the government palace. ”I thought explosions in Algiers were over,” she said. ”I made a big mistake and I can’t accept this.”
Algeria descended into violence in 1992 after the then military-backed authorities scrapped a parliamentary election that an Islamist political party was set to win. Up to 200 000 people were killed in the ensuing bloodshed.
That violence subsided in recent years following amnesties for insurgents, but rumbles on in mountains east of Algiers.
Residents said Wednesday was the first time since the 1990s that a powerful bomb targeted the centre of the Mediterranean city where police had stepped up security following a rise in attacks by insurgents in the countryside.
Gaping hole
The blast at the prime minister’s headquarters gouged a gaping hole in the six-storey building, shattering windows and showering rubble on to cars for blocks around.
Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, who was not harmed, was quoted by APS as calling the attack a ”criminal and cowardly act”. Speaking to state television, he described the blast as a terrorist attack.
”At first I thought it was an earthquake,” said lawyer Tahar bin Taleb. ”My wife called me a few moments later crying and shouting. I ran home to find all the mirrors and windows in the house were shattered.”
Dozens of ambulances converged on the upscale residential neighbourhood as thousands of people poured on to the streets and survivors were led from the building. Medics carried the bloodied and burned victims in their arms and on stretchers from the government palace.
”I am horrified and indignant after the attacks which have just struck Algiers,” French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in a statement. ”I convey my sincerest condolences to the victims’ families and assure the Algerian authorities of our full solidarity in their fight against terrorism.”
France ruled Algeria before independence in 1962.
One Algerian analyst said the operation appeared to be a reply to stepped-up attacks by the army on Islamist insurgents in the Bejaia region in mountains east of Algiers.
”This is a violent reaction to Bejaia operation where important leaders of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb are surrounded,” said security expert Anis Rahmani. ”I do believe, though, that that group has no capability to topple the government, but obviously it has the means to disturb the life of peaceful people in Algiers.”
In a statement issued on Wednesday afternoon, the South African Department of Foreign Affairs said the South African government has expressed its sadness, shock and outrage at the spate of bomb blasts that hit Algeria.
”In this regard, the government strongly condemns this callous and cowardly act and extends its heartfelt condolences to the government and the people of Algeria, members and friends of the bereaved families and wishes those wounded a speedy recovery,” the statement said. — Reuters, Sapa-AFP, Sapa