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Saturday, 8 September 2007
Members of al-Qaeda's North Africa wing say they carried out two suicide attacks that have killed at least 50 people in Algeria in the past two days.
The group, which calls itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, made the claim in an internet statement. In the latest attack, at least 30 people died on Saturday when a truck packed with explosives drove into a naval barracks in the port of Dellys.
The BBC's North Africa correspondent Richard Hamilton says the admission does not really come as a surprise because analysts say the attacks bore the hallmark of al-Qaeda, which has imported the tactic of suicide bombing into the region. The militant group was previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) but changed its name when it joined forces with al-Qaeda last year.
After the latest attack, Algeria's president Abdelaziz Bouteflika insisted terrorism was in retreat "despite the distressing and hurtful consequences of these operations that have targeted the Algerian people". Speaking on Algerian television, he said that by targeting innocent people the attackers had betrayed "their people, their country, their religion".
The vast majority of Algerians distance themselves from the extremists and after decades of war say they are tired of bloodshed, our correspondent says.
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BBC NEWS | Africa | Al-Qaeda claims Algerian bombings
Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and now Algeria. The list of nations in which al-Qa'ida kills fellow Muslims is ever increasing.
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