Algeria

Algeria’s governing coalition won an overall majority in parliamentary elections marked by poor turnout, keeping control of a body many in this North African country see as subservient to the powerful executive. The poll was the third legislative election since an Islamist revolt erupted after the cancellation of a national election in January 1992.

Algeria saw the lowest election turnout by far in its history as only 36,51% of the electorate turned out to vote in parliamentary elections, Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said on Friday in Algiers. A total of 19-million people had been eligible to vote in Thursday’s elections for 389 seats in the Algerian Parliament.

Bombs killed a police officer and wounded five other people on Wednesday on the eve of parliamentary elections in Algeria, prompting fears of renewed Islamist extremism. The blasts came 48 hours after the North Africa branch of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network called on Algerians to boycott Thursday’s polls.

Algerians worried by an outbreak of political violence choose a new Parliament on Thursday, but many doubt whether the politically weak institution can do much to stabilise the troubled country. ”Algerians have a disastrous image of Parliament,” wrote Ali Bahmane, a columnist at El Watan daily.

Attackers may be planning to strike in Algiers on Saturday, three days after twin suicide bombs killed 33 people in the Algerian capital, the United States embassy said citing what it called unconfirmed information. The embassy added it would be open for business as usual on Saturday but would be restricting the movements of its staff in light of the information it had received.

Algeria’s prime minister vowed that national elections will go ahead next month despite suicide bombing attacks claimed by al-Qaeda killed 24 people and wounded 222 others in the capital. ”The objective was a media provocation shortly before the election,” scheduled for May 17, said Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem.

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s suicide bombings that killed 30 people and injured more than 160 in Algeria’s capital. Bombers in three explosives-laden cars were responsible, police said at the scene of the blasts. The attacks raised fears of a return to Algeria’s intense political violence of the 1990s.

Bombs killed 30 people in Algiers on Wednesday in the first such attacks in Algeria’s capital in years, raising fears of a return to the North African oil exporter’s recent history of political bloodletting. One of the blasts ripped part of the facade off the prime minister’s headquarters at the centre of the port city.

The death toll from political violence in Algeria more than doubled to 45 in March from February as the army stepped up attacks on Islamist insurgents, according to a Reuters count based on newspaper reports. Of the 45 dead, 33 were rebels, 11 were soldiers and one was a foreigner, a Russian, the newspapers reported.

Algeria said on Saturday its cooperation with Washington’s war on terrorism was ”profitable” but it would never agree to host a United States military base on its territory. The US has conducted joint training exercises in countries around the Sahel as part of the ”Trans-Saharan Counter Terrorism Initiative”.

A group linked to al-Qaeda staged seven nearly simultaneous attacks targeting police in several towns east of Algiers, killing six and injuring almost 30, according to officials, police and hospital staff. Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for the Tuesday morning strikes in a telephone call to al-Jazeera.

A group of Algerian schoolchildren hanged a 12-year-old classmate in a game imitating the execution of Saddam Hussein, a newspaper reported on Monday, in the latest of a series of copycat hangings. The Algerian boy died two days after the former Iraqi dictator was hanged on December 30, in the village of Oued Rihou in western Algeria, the newspaper reported.

Any terror risk in Western Sahara stems from Morocco’s illegal occupation, the territory’s independence movement said on Tuesday, dismissing a Moroccan warning that an independent state could harbour terrorists. Mohamed Abdelaziz, President of the self-proclaimed government in exile for Western Sahara, said that Morocco’s policy on Western Sahara was the real security risk.

An Algerian newspaper and a press freedom watchdog criticised as heavy handed on Thursday suspended six month prison terms handed to two journalists for allegedly libelling Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi. Ech-Chorouk was sued by Gaddafi for stories suggesting he played a role in negotiations among Tuareg tribal leaders aimed at creating an independent Tuareg state.

Algerian police dismissed an announcement by the main rebel group that it had joined al-Qaeda, saying that although its fighters remained a worry they lacked the capacity to conduct major attacks. ”Their threats don’t scare us,” El Watan newspaper quoted Surete Nationale director general Ali Tounsi as saying.

The Algerian army on Sunday killed 19 armed suspected Islamists, newspapers reported on Monday. The army, backed by police, used heavy artillery and rockets fired from helicopters in an operation against suspected Islamists in the Edough mountains near Annaba, 600km east of Algiers.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan says that desertification is exacerbating extreme poverty and sparking conflict over dwindling resources, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. ”Across the planet, poverty, unsustainable land management and climate change are turning dry lands into deserts,” Annan said in a message for World Environment Day.

The head of the Polisario Front on Sunday claimed a report by the United Nations chief Kofi Annan amounted to a ”plot against the Sahrawi cause” and threatened a returned to ”armed struggle” if it is approved by the Security Council. Mohamed Abdelaziz, head of the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, said Annan’s report was a ”plot against the legitimate right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination”.

An earthquake hit the north-east Algerian town of Laalam east of Algiers late on Monday, killing at least four people and injuring 67, local authorities in Bejaia district said, quoted by national radio. About 30 houses collapsed, Algerian news agency APS quoted the authorities as saying.

A hospital in the western Algerian city of Oran carried out precautionary tests for bird flu on a family of four, but initial results were negative, the hospital director said on Wednesday. Definitive test results are not expected for a week, Dr Abderrahmane Attar said in a telephone interview.

A banned Algerian Islamic group with ties to the al-Qaeda network has rejected a government amnesty for Islamic militants in a statement on its website. The Salafist Group for Call and Combat issued the statement in an internet posting on Friday, a day after Algerians voted overwhelmingly to approve a government peace plan.

After years of bloody civil war, Algerians overwhelmingly voted in favour of a plan of national reconciliation that would give amnesty to thousands of suspected Islamic terrorists, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni announced on Friday. Nearly 80% of Algeria’s more than 18-million eligible voters went to the polls.

Two members of Algeria’s security services were killed and five injured when a mine went off as an army patrol passed by, newspapers said on Wednesday. The incident occurred in the Msila region, 245km south of the capital, Algiers, the report said.

Twelve Algerian troops were killed and a number wounded in a weekend ambush by armed Islamist rebels, Algerian media reported on Monday, indicating that despite official statements the unrest is far from over. A bomb exploded as the troops’ convoy was travelling on Sunday near Khenchela, a city about 540km east of the capital, Algiers.