Al-Qaida group claims responsibility for Algiers bombing

An al-Qaida-linked group said it carried out the Algerian truck bombings that killed at least 26 people in carefully timed blasts that drew swift international condemnation.

Yesterday’s targeting of United Nations offices in the capital Algiers was a new development in Algeria’s 15-year battle against Islamic rebels, who previously focused their hate on symbols of Algeria’s military-backed government and civilians.

As many as 11 UN workers – and possibly more – were killed, the world body said.

Al-Qaida’s self-styled North African branch, in a posting on a militant website, said two suicide bombers attacked the buildings with trucks carrying 800 kilograms (1,760lbs) of explosives each.

It described the UN offices as “the headquarters of the international infidels’ den”. The other target, Algeria’s Constitutional Council, rules on the constitutionality of laws and oversees elections.

“This is another successful conquest … carried out by the Knights of the Faith with their blood in defence of the wounded nation of Islam,” said the statement, which claimed that 110 people had been killed.

Algerian interior minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said the government was “certain” that al-Qaida’s North Africa affiliate – formerly known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, or GSPC – “was behind the attack”.

Militants arrested after previous bombings in April had identified the UN offices and the council building as future targets, Zerhouni said, according to the official APS news agency.

A light tanker was used in the UN attack, and a light van in the other, he said.

Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa is thought to have only several hundred fighters but has resisted Algerian security sweeps to organise suicide bombings and other attacks.

Its members have rejected amnesty offers and have turned their sights from toppling the government to waging holy war and fighting Western interests. Counter-terrorism officials in Algeria’s former colonial ruler France say it is drawing members from across North Africa.

Yesterday’s date – December 11 – suggested an Islamic terror link. Al-Qaida has struck on the 11th in several countries, including the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for attacks on April 11 that hit the Algerian prime minister’s office and a police station, killing 33 people.

December 11 has another meaning for Algerians. On that date in 1960, pro-independence demonstrations were held against colonial ruler France. The Constitutional Council is located on December 11, 1960, Boulevard.

The attacks killed 26 people, said an Interior Ministry statement last night. It said the dead included two UN staffers – one Danish, the other Senegalese - as well as three people from Asia whose nationalities were not given. Another 177 people were injured – of whom 26 were kept in hospitals for further treatment while the rest were released, the ministry said.

Other sources said the toll was higher. An official at the civil protection agency said 45 people were killed. A doctor at an Algiers hospital who said he was in contact with staff at other area hospitals said the death toll was at least 60.

Algerian prime minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, quoted by APS, said such figures were inflated and that the government had no reason to hide the real death toll.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, travelling in Bali, Indonesia, where he is attending a global climate meeting, ordered an immediate review of UN security precautions and policies in Algeria and elsewhere.

He condemned the bombings and pledged to do everything possible to help the victims and their families.

“Words cannot express my sense of shock, outrage and anger at the terrorist attack on the United Nations mission in Algiers,” he said.

“This was an abjectly cowardly strike against civilian officials serving humanity’s highest ideals under the UN banner – base, indecent and unjustifiable by even the most barbarous political standard.”

The bombs exploded at around 9.30am and one blew the front off the UN refugee agency building. It also caused “considerable damage” to the main UN building housing the UN Development Programme and other agencies across the street.

US president George Bush extended condolences for those killed in “this horrible bombing”, said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner denounced the attacks as “barbarity” and said that while Algeria had made great progress in fighting terrorism, “the sordid beast is not yet dead”.

Al-Qaida has called for attacks on French and Spanish interests in North Africa. Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, called in September for jihad in North Africa to “cleanse (it) of the children of France and Spain”.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy visited Algeria just last week.