Arab leaders steered clear of the region’s most contentious issues as they prepared to wrap up a summit on Wednesday, while their resolution to reactivate a Middle East peace plan was swiftly rejected by Israel. Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi described Israel and the Palestinians as ”idiots”, leaving his audience in fits of laughter.
Two people were killed and nine were reported missing in Algerian floods this week following heavy rain in the Sahara, according to reports on Wednesday. About 70 travellers were trapped when wadis (valleys) suddenly flooded in the downpours on Sunday and Monday and had to be rescued by army helicoters, newspapers reported.
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/ 13 January 2005
Algerian authorities are mopping up the main Islamic extremist group responsible for the deaths of dozens of people, having wiped out another movement, Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said in an interview published on Thursday. The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat has become the principal extremist group in Algeria’s Islamist rebellion.
Suspected Islamic terrorists killed 10 people in separate incidents in Algeria, security sources said on Monday. In the capital, Algiers, two policemen were shot dead late on Saturday during celebrations of a Moslem religious holiday. The daily Le Matin said the killers belonged to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.
Newly re-elected Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika took the oath of office on Monday, embarking on a second term that he said will be devoted to the quest for ”true national reconciliation” in war-torn Algeria. The president’s landslide re-election is attributed largely to the ”civil reconciliation” plan he unveiled in 1999.
On the eve of what is shaping up as the most democratic presidential election to date to be held in Algeria, the press and three of the six candidates in the polls on Wednesday accused the incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika of plotting to steal the vote. Candidates agree that a first-round victory by Bouteflika would raise suspicions.
For the first time since independence more than four decades ago, many Algerians felt their vote could make a real difference as they mulled Tuesday whether to re-elect President Abdelaziz Bouteflika or throw him out in favour of one of his five challengers.
Rioting broke out on Wednesday when Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika took his re-election campaign to this flashpoint city in the restive Kabylie region, homeland of the nation’s Berber minority. Protesters clashed with security forces outside a cultural centre where Bouteflika was holding a campaign rally.
Outbreaks of violence that the Algerian press describes as ”riots” by disaffected youth have broken out in the past few days in several northern cities and towns, newspapers reported on Tuesday. Youths are protesting against unemployment, water shortages and an alleged lack of promised development programmes.
A strong aftershock rocked already quake-ravaged areas of Algeria, collapsing a 15-story building with three people inside and injuring more than 200 others, the interior ministry said.
The stretchers keep coming, bearing bodies out of the rubble left by Algeria’s massive earthquake, adding to a tally of grief and horror that, four days old on Sunday, feels a lot more like rage.