Algeria hit by surge in guerrilla violence

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In pictures: Algerian blasts

BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: Algerian blasts

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Algeria blasts fuel violence fears

At least 17 people have been killed and more than 80 injured in bomb attacks on the prime minister's office and a police station in Algeria's capital.

As yet no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Algiers but the finger is likely to point at the recently re-named al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb.

Formerly known as the Group for Salafi Preaching and Combat, it announced it was joining forces with al-Qaeda last September.

Certainly these latest bombings would fit with previous attacks by the group.

In February it targeted a number of police stations on the outskirts of Algiers and last month it bombed a bus carrying Russian workers.

The group is thought to have between 300 and 700 members spread throughout Algeria and Europe.

Although its main focus is on establishing strict Islamic rule in Algeria, it is now thought to harbour regional and even global ambitions.

Foiled plots

There is growing concern among local and Western security services about the rise of violent Islamic extremism across the Maghreb.

In Morocco the security forces continue to be on high alert after three suicide bombers blew themselves up on Tuesday, and this year has also seen arrests and foiled plots in Tunisia.

The precise extent to which violent extremism in the region is inter-connected or linked to al-Qaeda's leadership is far from clear, but borders are porous and there is certainly evidence of contact between the various groups.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Algeria blasts fuel violence fears

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"..The Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the bombings, Al Jazeera television reported..."

'Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb' claims deadly Algiers bombings

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Suicide bombers in three explosives-laden cars were responsible for the blasts in Algiers which killed 23 people and wounded more than 160, police said at the scene of the blasts.

At the Government headquarters, where 12 people were killed and 118 hurt, a policeman who declined to be identified said, "The attack was perpetrated by a suicide bomber who drove his car into the guard post."

In the eastern suburb of Bab Ezzouar, another policeman said suicide bombers driving two cars carried out the attack on a local police station that killed 11 people and wounded 44, according to the latest figures from the civil defence agency.

Though no claim of responsibility has been made, the attacks come as Algeria and neighbouring Morocco struggle to keep a lid on mounting Islamic extremism.

The civil defence department warned in a statement that the toll from the blast outside the Government building in central Algiers "could become heavier".

A total of 162 people have been injured in the two attacks, which Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhamed has condemned as "criminal and cowardly".

Witnesses say many of the injured appear to be in critical condition.

The explosion at the Government headquarters shook several buildings and sent shattered glass flying up to 300 meters, witnesses said.

Ambulances and police cars immediately rushed to the complex, which houses the office of the Prime Minister and several ministries.

More than one hour after the explosion, which was heard across the capital, a thick cloud of smoke was still rising from the blast site.

Thousands of people congregated on the vast steps of the building and police struggled to contain the crowd.

Minutes later, witnesses say the car bombs went off in Bab Ezzouar, on the road to the international airport and not far from one of Algeria's largest universities.

One blast demolished an electricity substation, while another other two badly damaged a police station.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy has voiced his "horror and indignation" and pledged France's "full solidarity" with its former colony in the fight against terrorism.

The latest blasts came five days after nine Algerian soldiers and at least six Islamist militants were killed when a military convoy was ambushed in a forested area west of Algiers.

The Algerian Army has been involved in an offensive in the eastern region of Kabylie against an Islamist militant group that has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks.

The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) is an Al Qaeda-linked north African group, feared by France as its main terrorist threat.

Algeria is not the only north African state battling militant activity, with neighbours Tunisia and Morocco facing a similar challenge from Islamist groups.

"For a while, it seemed that the authorities in (these) countries had broken the back of the Islamist terrorist networks," said Magnus Ranstorp, a specialist in Islamist networks at Sweden's National Defence College.

"But it looks that these fronts have been re-energised, revitalised, perhaps because of the severity of the crackdowns.

"That is what we are seeing today essentially, a sort of reaction to these offensives."

Suicide bombers committed Algiers attacks: security officials

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'Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb' claims deadly Algiers bombings

Al-Qaida au Maghreb a revendiqué les attentats d'Alger et affirmé qu'ils avaient été perpétrés par trois kamikazes dont il publie des photos dans un communiqué mis en ligne.

Attentats d'Alger: les kamikazes identifiés

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Berlin - The EU's German presidency expressed its shock at Wednesday's attacks on the prime minister's office in the centre of Algiers and on a police station.

'The presidency most strongly condemns these attacks, which have claimed numerous lives and injured well over 100 people,' said a statement released in Berlin.

'The presidency conveys its heartfelt sympathy to the families of the victims and wishes those who have been injured a speedy recovery,' it added.

EU presidency condemns Algeria attacks

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PARIS, April 11 — Two bombings in Algeria, one targeting the prime minister’s office in the country’s capital, killed at least 23 people today and injured 160, marking a sharp escalation in the Qaeda-linked violence that has been spreading across North Africa in recent months.

Al-Jazeera television reported that the Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, North Africa’s most active terrorist group, called its bureau and claimed responsibility for both bombings.

“This is a crime, a cowardly act,” said Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, speaking on national radio shortly after the explosion outside his offices. “It can only be described as cowardice and betrayal at a time when the Algerian people are asking for national reconciliation and extend their hands, these criminal acts are taking place.”

The official news agency said that at least 23 people had been reported dead following the bombings.

Police officials said the attack at the government offices killed at least 12 people, Agence France Presse reported.

The second attack took place in a suburb east of the capital, where officials said suicide bombers driving two cars attacked a police station, killing 11 people, AFP reported.

The Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb is the name recently adopted by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which was created in 1998 as an offshoot of an earlier Islamist group that had been fighting the government in a decade-long civil war.

Its numbers had been seriously depleted by two government offers of amnesty and a subsequent manhunt by Algerian security forces after the second offer expired last year. But the group has undergone an apparent revival since its affiliation with Al Qaeda last year, drawing new members from across North Africa, terrorism experts in Europe and North Africa say.

Together with a resurgence of violence in Morocco and Tunisia, governments on both sides of the Mediterranean fear that the re-branded group is coalescing into a regional terror movement.

In February, the group detonated five powerful car bombs outside police stations in six towns east of the capital, Algiers, killing six people.

Those coordinated attacks alarmed officials because they involved more sophisticated remote detonation devices than had been used before.

The attacks today confirmed fears that that the violence would again enter the capital, which became a war zone during the country’s horrific civil war in the 1990s.

Residents today described the scene after the explosions. "At first I thought it was an earthquake," the Reuters news agency quoted lawyer Tahar bin Taleb as saying. “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.” Reuters said the explosion at the prime minister’s offices blew a hole in the six-storey building, shattered windows and showered rubble onto surrounding cars.

Islamists bring fight to capital of Algeria