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2008-01-29 Africa North

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Posted by anonymous5089 2008-01-29 04:19|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 THENIA, Algeria (AP) - A car loaded with explosives and headed for a police station in northern Algeria exploded Tuesday after officers stopped the attack with bullets. At least two people were killed and 23 wounded, the Interior Ministry said.
Witnesses and security officials said at least three people were killed.

Officers opened fire on a vehicle that was speeding toward the local police station in the town of Thenia, some 40 miles east of Algiers. The vehicle exploded short of the building, leaving a 6 1/2-foot-wide crater.

The explosion was the latest in a wave of attacks signaling that Islamic fighters are regrouping in Algeria, where offensives by security forces and government amnesty offers had thinned the ranks of insurgents in recent years.

Meanwhile, a report Tuesday said police arrested four people allegedly involved in planning the most serious recent attack: twin suicide bombings Dec. 11 in the Algerian capital that killed at least 37 people, 17 of them U.N. workers.

The four reportedly were preparing a new attack in Algiers, the daily El Watan reported, quoting security sources. Two were scouts who allegedly guided the suicide bombers to their destinations; two were militants who filmed the bombings, according to the paper, usually reliable on the subject.

The Dec. 11 bombings, at U.N. offices and a government building, left little doubt that al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, an affiliate of the global terror network that claimed the December attacks, was intent on reviving the insurgency that has wracked Algeria since 1992.

The four were arrested in Boumerdes, east of Algiers, in a region known as a haunt for the al-Qaida-affiliated group, El Watan said. Three had no previous police record.

The paper, quoting security sources, said the arrests provided a partial picture of preparations for the Dec. 11 attacks, including the purchase of the two small trucks at a market in Tidjelabine that were loaded with explosive materials, El Watan reported.

The paper also said a man described as an emir, or leader, of the Algiers area was killed in an ambush near Souk El Had. Police were checking his identity.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attempted attack Tuesday in Thenia that stopped the clock on City Hall and damaged surrounding buildings.

The Interior Ministry said at least two were killed. Earlier, security officials said the bombing killed at least three people and wounded several others.

The al-Qaida affiliate said it was behind a similar attack earlier this month in Naciria, east of Algiers. Four people were killed when a vehicle rigged with explosives slammed into the police station there.

The groupwhich emerged from an alliance between Osama bin Laden's international terrorist network and an Algerian Islamist movement known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, or GSPCincreasingly has used suicide bombers to deliver its strikes.

Since the December attacks, police have been searching for 33 alleged Islamists ranging in age from 24 and 42, including a 26-year-old woman, El Watan said.

Algeria has been battling an Islamic insurgency since 1992 triggered when the army canceled the second round of the country's first multiparty elections to prevent a likely victory by a now-banned Muslim fundamentalist party. Up to 200,000 people are estimated to have died in violence since then.

Posted by anonymous5089 2008-01-29 11:00|| 2008-01-29 11:00|| Front Page Top

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