Algeria hit by surge in guerrilla violence

[Al-khiyal]

Algerian Islamists whose sole aim is killing for the sake of it

December 12, 2007 -- In September 2006, an isolated group of Islamist radicals based in Algeria's coastal mountains made a little-noticed declaration. The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French acronym GSPC, was thought to be on the verge of defeat when it announced a merger with al-Qaeda.

Significantly, this was revealed in a taped message from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's unofficial deputy.

"Osama bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat has joined al-Qaeda," Zawahiri said. He added that France, Algeria's former colonial power, would be a prime target for attack.

The GSPC followed up Zawahiri's words with its own statement, saying: "We pledge allegiance to Sheik Osama bin Laden. Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes."

Given bin Laden is believed to be in Pakistan, his ability to direct the GSPC's operations in Algeria is unclear. Yet since the announcement last year, the GSPC's modus operandi has changed unmistakably. Multiple and simultaneous suicide attacks have become more common, with some against foreign interests inside Algeria. Tuesday's attacks fit this pattern.

In short, the GSPC has adopted the methods of al-Qaeda. Crucial advantages come with this decision.

First, the al-Qaeda "brand" brings glamour and a flow of recruits. More importantly, however, it also brings a new definition of success.

Previously, the GSPC was dedicated to overthrowing Algeria's secular regime under President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and installing a hardline, Islamist government. Its chances of achieving this were virtually zero.

Having merged with al-Qaeda, however, the GSPC has acquired a new and far less demanding goal. Now the one and only aim is to execute attacks for their own sake, especially against Western interests.

[Al-khiyal]

After deadly assault, Algeria offers details on attackers

ALGIERS, December 12, 2007: A day after two suicide attacks shook the Algerian capital, the government Wednesday began to circulate information about the identities of the two bombers, indicating that both were native Algerians and members of a local insurgent network affiliated with Al Qaeda.

The information began to trickle out after the authorities had said little all day. Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci announced only that five among the official death toll of 31 were foreigners. Most other reports said the toll of the two blasts - one targeting a United Nations office and another a government building - was about twice that high.

"Algerians are completely united against terrorism," Medelci said, insisting that the attacks did not portend "civil war." But he warned that Algeria would not remain the only target in North Africa: "It's everyone who is targeted, sooner or later."

The bombing Tuesday was the worst attack against the United Nations since August 2003, when an Al Qaeda truck bomb ripped through the world body's headquarters in Baghdad and killed 22 people. It was also the most powerful sign yet that Al Qaeda's North African branch was broadening its targets from local to international targets, with potentially cascading implications for militant cells elsewhere in the region and in Europe, counterterrorism officials said.

Rescue workers searched the rubble for bodies and survivors throughout Wednesday amid the increasingly hopeless gazes of family members and friends of those still missing. According to Algerian television reports, six survivors were retrieved from the ruins of the UN bombing site. An additional five could still be alive.

A newspaper editor here said the intelligence services had briefed him about the identities of the two bombers. One was identified as Rabah Bechla, a 64-year-old man from Reghaia, about 30 kilometers east of Algiers. The other was said to be Larbi Charef, a 30-year-old from an impoverished suburb on the eastern edge of the capital, said Mounir Boudjema, managing editor of the newspaper Liberté, which will publish the names Thursday.

Boudjema said Bechla joined the predecessor organization of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb - the group that has claimed to be responsible for the two bombs - in 1996 and was only a minor figure in the organization.

Charef was known to police as a petty criminal when he was arrested and convicted for being part of a group that was allegedly providing logistical support to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in 2004. He spent one year in prison from 2005 to 2006, according to this account. When he left prison last year, he disappeared into the eastern mountains of Algeria where the Qaeda group is active, the editor said.

The two men were members of two branches of the organization, Boudjema said. Their images were included on an Islamic Web site that published the statement claiming responsibility for the attacks, but the site had given different names. The new names are the real ones, the government told Boudjema.

But amid the trickle of information, official communications were scarce, leaving a sense of confusion about even basic information, like the death toll.

While the Interior Ministry said 31 people were killed in the blasts, local press reports quoting the Civil Protection Agency, which was involved in recovering victims, said the number had climbed to at least 70.

Security, already at high levels after a series of attacks in the country this year, was further tightened at embassies and in the offices and factories of some multinational firms.

The U.S. Embassy said it was "implementing more robust security procedures while we assess the current security situation," according to a statement on its Web site.

Companies have been taking heed of the warnings. The French tire maker Michelin, which operates an 800-worker plant in Algeria, said it had repatriated the families of most of its French employees two months ago in what a spokeswoman described as a "preventative measure."

At the British oil group BP, the mood was equally nervous. "We have raised our level of alertness," said David Nicholas, a spokesman in London for the company.

Highlighting the effort of the militants to make an impact on the international stage, at least five of those killed were foreign nationals, the Interior Ministry said, including two Chinese people, a Filipina, a Danish man and a man from Senegal. The United Nations said that at least nine of its staff members had died.

The bombings and their focus on the United Nations caused outrage and indignation abroad and at home.

Algeria has long battled Islamic militancy, but over the past 15 years insurgents had mainly targeted symbols of the secular army-backed administration.

By targeting UN staff, the assault was reminiscent of the 2003 attack in Baghdad. In the text that claimed responsibility for the attacks Tuesday, the group referred to the neighborhood where the UN offices were hit as the "Green Zone." an allusion to the U.S. sector in the Iraqi capital.

Newspapers also picked up on the parallels: In a front-page editorial the independent El Watan newspaper said Wednesday: "Algiers brings to mind Baghdad, disfigured by suicide attacks since the Iraq invasion by the Americans."

Some diplomats here explained that the United Nations had in some sense been an obvious target.

Less protected than high-profile embassies like those of the United States and France, a suicide attack targeting the United Nations held the promise of international reactions.

"It was the only high-profile international target they could hope to successfully hit," said one diplomat who requested anonymity. "And international targets are important because they allow this group to re-brand itself in a way that makes recruitment much easier."

The Algerian government estimates that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has 300 to 400 members, but Western diplomats said the real number was probably closer to 1,000.

In New York, meanwhile, Marie Okabe, the deputy spokeswoman for the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, said the organization had identified and notified the families of the nine UN employees who had died in the blast, most of whom were Algerians.

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BEIJING, December 13, 2007 (Xinhua) -- China State Construction Engineering Corp., which confirmed that one of its workers was killed in the bombing in Algeria, has sent a condolence mission to Algiers.

The company didn't reveal the victim's name as his mother hadn't been prepared to tell her daughter-in-law about the sad news.

The mission, led by Tang Tiezhi, general manager of the company's overseas department, was scheduled to arrive in Algiers Thursday morning (Beijing Time) and convey sympathy for the injured and arrange funeral affairs for the dead.

"The victim's body hasn't been buried because when and where to hold the funeral depend on his wife. She has not got the news now, but the mother will tell her daughter-in-law soon," Mao Zhibing, deputy general manager of the company said.

Mao also said that the company was trying to help the families of the injured, including the victim's mother, get a visa for Algeria.

Ling Jun, charge d'affaires of China's embassy to Algeria, visited the injured in the hospital early Wednesday morning. He expressed his condolences to them and urged the construction company to guarantee effective treatment of the injured and properly handle the dead corpse, said the website of the embassy.

The two car bombings, one targeted the offices of the UN refugee agency and the other exploded near the Algerian Supreme Court, killed 67 people and injured more than 100.

"The Chinese government strongly condemns the terrorist attack, and lamented the death of the victims including Chinese," said China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang in a press conference.

Chinese company sends mission to Algeria to mourn bombing victim

[Al-khiyal]

BERLIN, December 12, 2007 -- Until last year, al-Qaeda's affiliate in North Africa was an isolated bunch of desert and mountain guerrillas, struggling to attract recruits, money and attention. Tuesday's bombings in the heart of Algeria's capital are the latest sign that the network has improved on all three fronts since swearing allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

By targeting the Algerian Supreme Court and U.N. agencies, the attackers sent a defiant message to Algerian authorities and undermined the government's claims that the group's demise is near. They also served notice that no part of the country is safe from their reach, ending a decade of relative calm in heavily guarded Algiers.

Counterterrorism officials and analysts said the Algerian network's operations have become much more sophisticated since al-Qaeda adopted the group in September 2006, announcing a formal partnership and urging the Algerians to focus on French, U.S. and other foreign targets.

Since then, the local al-Qaeda branch has moved its fight from the Algerian countryside, where its pattern of attacks on police stations and military barracks had received little publicity outside North Africa. By recruiting suicide bombers - a new phenomenon in Algeria - and targeting civilians, the network has learned quickly that it can seize global attention.

"I don't think this implies the terrorist danger from the group is any greater, but rather that it's just become more efficient," said George Joffe, a North Africa researcher at Cambridge University in England. "The tactics have changed."

An obscure faction once known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat took on a new name, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, in January. (Maghreb is an Arabic word for the region of North Africa stretching from Libya to Mauritania.)

In April, it bombed the Government Palace in the center of Algiers and a police station on the edge of the city, killing 33. The explosions were the first suicide attacks in Algeria since the 1990s, when the country was mired in civil war, and the worst violence in the capital in more than a decade. In September, bombers targeted a convoy carrying President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, missing him but killing 22.

Meanwhile, the group has reinvented its propaganda wing, creating a polished Internet operation that lionizes its "martyrs" within hours of an attack and includes narrated videos of past bombings.

"It's remarkably sophisticated," said Evan F. Kohlmann, a New York-based analyst who studies Internet use by terrorist groups. "It's one thing to carry out a suicide bombing. It's another thing to record video of the attack at the same time."

Last December, the al-Qaeda affiliate penetrated a protected military zone in Algiers, bombing a bus carrying foreign oil workers for U.S. contractor KBR. The Algerian driver was killed and nine passengers hurt. The attackers later posted a video of the attack as well as footage of how it was organized. One segment showed the plotters using the Internet to consult the Google Earth satellite image site to track the bus's likely route.

The network began distributing its videos on the Web three years ago. The first production, titled "Apostate Hell," was blurry and looked like "amateur hour," Kohlmann said. Since then, the group has set up a permanent Web site with recruiting pitches and footage of fighters assembling bombs.

Kohlmann said that it was unclear why authorities had not shut down the site but speculated that they prefer to monitor it instead. Webmasters in Europe, particularly in Germany, provide crucial support to the group's Internet operations, he added.

The North African faction has direct connections to the media arm run by al-Qaeda's central leadership. About 12 hours after Tuesday's bombings in Algiers, a brief assertion of responsibility was posted on the al-Hisbah Islamic Network, a password-protected site that releases video announcements by bin Laden and his deputies.

That statement and a more detailed assertion were posted later on the Algerian group's permanent Web site. It included photos of the two men who allegedly carried out the bombings.

One depicted a smiling, gray-haired man, identified as Ibrahim Abu Uthman, who by the site's account drove a truck loaded with 1,800 pounds of explosives into the office complex housing several U.N. agencies.

Nine U.N. staff members were killed, U.N. officials in New York said Wednesday, after mistakenly announcing the day before that 11 had died.

The attack was the worst on a U.N. target since the August 2003 bombing of the organization's headquarters in Baghdad. Twenty-three staff members were killed in that attack, prompting the United Nations to pull out of Iraq.

On Wednesday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the world organization would not do the same in Algeria. "Our colleagues in Algiers would ask no less," he said.

The other bomber, identified by the al-Qaeda Web site as Abdul Rahman al-Asimi, blew up a van outside the Algerian Supreme Court about 10 minutes before the U.N. attack.

The combined death toll remained unclear.

The Algerian Interior Ministry said Wednesday that 31 people were killed and scores injured. Speaking on national television Tuesday night, Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem said the official figures represented "the real toll." He added: "We have nothing to hide, and every drop of Algerian blood counts for us."

But rescue workers and hospital officials in Algiers said the number was far higher. El Watan, a leading Algerian newspaper, reported that the bombings took 72 lives. The daily El Khabar, citing health officials, put the total at 67.

Algiers attack shows maturing of Al-Qaeda unit

[Al-khiyal]

December 12, 2007 -- Officials and analysts in Algeria have come out in agreement that Tuesday’s twin attacks in Algiers represent a show of allegiance by embattled terrorists to the al-Qaeda network and its fugitive leader Osama bin Laden.

Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for the December 11th attacks, which left 30 dead and 28 injured, according to the latest official tally. An internet statement by the group showed photos of two suicide bombers who allegedly targeted the UN and Constitutional Council. The statement said the attacks were in response to claims the group had been weakened and to avenge the killing of the group's leaders by Algerian security forces. The "invasion", as the group described the attack, serves as a "reminder to crusaders… to listen well to the demands and speeches of Osama bin Laden".

The terrorists took advantage of relaxed security measures following the November 29th local elections, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said on Tuesday. The choice of the Constitutional Council, UNDP and UNHCR offices as targets for the two attacks, Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem said on Tuesday, demonstrates the impotence and desperation of the group, which "is trying to show that it has the ability to attack symbols of the state."

Security forces have recently been successful in arresting or killing several influential elements of the terrorist organisation. The surrender of major leaders such as Hassan Hattab, the founder of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which later changed its name to al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, have also had an impact on the groups' capabilities. Many GSPC leaders were reportedly unhappy with the strategy of targeting civilians, particularly after the April 11th attack on the government palace in Algiers. The exploitation of minors in suicide attacks also earned the scorn of the Algerian public, further weakening the group's standing.

"Anyone can go into a café with a Kalashnikov, open fire and cause carnage. Anyone can leave a vehicle laden with explosives anywhere," a counterterrorism officer speaking on condition of anonymity told Magharebia. "Our role is to track down the people pulling the strings, especially those who run the laboratories where explosives are manufactured, those who supply the items being used to make them and above all those who give orders for attacks to be carried out."

Since it announced its allegiance to the al-Qaeda network in December 2006, Droukdel's group has been doing "everything it can to please bin Laden by trying to copy the Iraqi and Afghan models here," said the counterterrorism officer. "Suicide attacks had never been carried out in Algeria before that date."

Aziz Azizi, columnist for the daily newspaper Horizons, said the two attacks are a "fresh warning of the consequences of lowering our guard, despite the recent successes of the security forces." He stressed that terrorism is "a real and ubiquitous threat."

Kamal Amghar of the daily La Tribune said, "The procedures and methods used, because of their extreme cowardice, bear all the hallmarks of the hatred-filled desperados of the GSPC who have suffered a number of setbacks over the last few months."

Prime Minister Belkhadem assured the public that Algeria "will continue to implement the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation," adding that those who have rejected this process "must be fought most severely."

Belkhadem stressed that terrorism has no borders, no nationality and no religion, and said heads of state and the public now realise it is an international phenomenon that requires co-operation in order to thwart it.

Algiers attacks seen as show of allegiance for al-Qaeda

[Al-khiyal]

Algiers, December 12, 2007:
Rescue workers carry a survivor
removed from the site of the blast
at U.N. offices in the Hydra district

UNITED NATIONS, December 12, 2007 (AP) - The U.N. chief vowed Wednesday to keep United Nations staff in Algeria, saying the bombing of its offices in the north African nation will not deter the world body from helping people in need.

At least nine U.N. workers were among the 31 killed in the attack in Algiers by an affiliate of al-Qaida. U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said the situation on the ground is fluid and confusing, with some U.N. staffers still missing.

It was the worst attack against U.N. staff since an August 2003 bombing at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad killed the organization's top envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 others.

Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan pulled all U.N. international staff out of Iraq two months after that attack, which was followed by a second bombing at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad and a spate of attacks on humanitarian workers. He allowed a small U.N. contingent to return to Baghdad in August 2004 but the number has remained low since then because of security concerns.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the U.N. General Assembly in a live video address from Bali, Indonesia, where he is attending the U.N. conference on climate change, that the United Nations will remain in Algeria.

''Our mission has been, and will always be, to help those most in need,'' he said. ''The Baghdad attack will not deter us. Neither will this most recent attack. Our colleagues in Algiers would ask no less.''

Okabe said: ''Essential staff are remaining in Algiers and will continue U.N. operations.''

Ban said he spoke to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika Wednesday evening and asked him to take all necessary measures to ensure the security of U.N. personnel.

The U.N. chief expressed ''shock and outrage'' at Tuesday's twin truck bombings that targeted U.N. offices and a government building.

''In Algiers, we have today one more ugly reminder that terrorism remains the scourge of our times,'' he said. ''The international community must be resolute in opposing those who prey on the innocent and vulnerable and those, like the United Nations, who seek only to help them.''

The U.N. said the nine staff confirmed dead included six Algerians, one Senegalese, one Dane and one Filipino.

Okabe told reporters the dead included staff from the International Labor Organizations, the U.N. refugee agency, the World Food Program, the U.N. Development Program, the U.N. Population Fund and the Department of Safety and Security.

Rescuers on Tuesday pulled two surviving U.N. employees from under the rubble and both are now receiving medical treatment, Okabe said.

''Hopes for finding anymore survivors in the rubble have dimmed and the local authorities have started to use heavy machinery to clear the site,'' she added.

U.N. officials on Tuesday had said at least 11 of the world body's staff members were killed. Okabe said the 11 dead was a preliminary figure and that officials are now counting only those who are confirmed dead and whose families have been notified.

Ban said he sent several of his top aides to Algiers, including UNDP administrator Kemal Dervis, to determine how best to aid victims and their families.

About 175 U.N. employees worked in Algeria, including about 115 locally based staff, Okabe said.

Before Tuesday, more than 250 U.N. civilian employees had been killed either by violence or in accidents since January 1992, when such record-keeping began, U.N. officials said. Those figures do not include the deaths of U.N. staff from peacekeeping missions.

UN chief vows to keep staff in Algeria despite bombing

[Al-khiyal]

Families queue at morgue for Algeria bomb victims

December 12, 2007 -- Grieving relatives crowded a morgue in the Algerian capital on Wednesday as the official death toll from twin Al-Qaeda suicide bombings rose to 31, and rescuers gave up their search for survivors.

The United Nations said 11 of its staff were killed by one of the suicide bombers who targeted a UN office in Algiers Tuesday, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had ordered a worldwide security review.

With death tolls ranging from 31 stated by the government to 72 given by leading newspaper El Watan, seven people were pulled alive from the debris of the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and other UN agencies.

The second attack killed and maimed students packed in a bus as it passed a car that was detonated outside the Supreme Court in central Algiers.

While the first fatalities were being buried, other families gathered at the morgue or waited outside the wrecked UN offices until rescuers with sniffer dogs finally gave up hope of finding anyone else alive.

The seventh person found, a 40-year-old woman, was dragged out in the early hours of Wednesday. She was taken to a military hospital where surgeons were to amputate her two legs, medical officials said.

She told rescuers there was a least one other person still trapped in the tangle of concrete and iron, but it was not clear if any other survivors were found.

Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci told French radio that the dead included five foreigners. Hospital sources told AFP there were 62 dead and about 100 injured.

El-Watan newspaper cited medical sources who put the number of dead at 72.

The United Nations said at least 11 of its staff were killed and several were still unaccounted for.

Three of the UN victims were foreigners, including Philippine national Gene Luna, 48, who had only taken up her post in Algiers one week ago.

The World Food Programme said most of its staff had been outside the office on a training course when the blast occurred, saving many lives.

UN chief Ban led international condemnation of the attacks and vowed to protect UN staff.

"We will take every measure to ensure their safety, in Algeria and elsewhere, beginning with an immediate review of our security precautions and policies," he said.

"Words cannot express my sense of shock, outrage and anger at the terrorist attack on the UN mission in Algiers."

The Algiers attacks were the worst on UN facilities since the August 19, 2003 truck bombing of the UN office in Baghdad, which killed 22 people including special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Al-Qaeda's Branch in the Islamic Maghreb (BAQMI) claimed responsibility for the bombs in a statement published on an Islamist website, the authenticity of which could not be immediately confirmed.

The group hailed the "success of two martyr operations" in the statement and showed photographs of two suicide bombers, named as Abdel Rahmane al-Assmi and Ammi Ibrahim Abou Othmane, both carrying assault rifles.

China and the Arab states added their voices to the chorus of international condemnation. A Chinese construction company said one of its workers was killed, according to China Central Television.

Saudi King Abdullah told Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika by telephone that Riyadh condemned the "criminal explosions".

It was the latest of a series of bombings in the capital and other major Algerian cities this year that have killed more than 120 people. The Al-Qaeda offshoot has claimed responsibility for all of them.

The group changed its name this year from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

On September 6, a suicide attack targeting Bouteflika's convoy killed 22 people, while another suicide attack east of Algiers killed 30.

Bombs in the Algerian capital on April 11 killed 33 people.

The government has been engaged in a bloody conflict with Islamic radicals since soon after the army cancelled December 1991 elections won by an Islamist group.