Algiers
At least 24 people died and 110 were injured as at least two
explosions rocked the Algerian capital Algiers and one of its
suburbs Wednesday, Algerian Solidarity Minister Jamal Wild Abbas
said.
One of the blasts was caused by a car bomb that was detonated in
front of the main government offices where, witnesses said, a
suicide bomber managed to break through a police barrier.
The attack killed at least 12 people, including the bomber, two
police officers, a pregnant woman and two children.
The blast injured 93 people, 50 of whom were in critical condition,
Abbas told journalists at Mustapha Pasha Hospital in central
Algiers.
The official APS news agency said the car bomb targeted the offices
of Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem. The explosion is
said to have sent hundreds of people running in panic through the
streets of downtown Algiers and scattered broken glass and other
debris over hundreds of metres.
Another bomb, which went off only minutes after the first, exploded
in front of a police station in the eastern suburb of Bab al-Suwar
and killed at least 12 people while injuring more than 50, the
Mustapha Pasha Hospital said.
Local residents claimed that at least three car bombs went off in
Bab al-Suwar.
In a first reaction, Belkhadem called the attacks "criminal and
cowardly," and noted that they "took place at a time when all the
Algerian people are demanding national reconciliation."
In a statement, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy
expressed his "horror and indignation" at the attacks and conveyed
France's "total solidarity" with the Algerian government's fight
against terrorism.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings, the
first to strike Algiers in several years and the first ever to
target the palace of the prime minister.
However, the radical Islamic group formerly known as the Salafist
Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) has recently joined the al
Qaeda terrorist network.
The group has declared its intention to attack Western targets,
particularly in France, and has stepped up its campaign against the
government in Algiers.
Since the beginning of the year, some 50 people had been killed in
various terrorist attacks, some of which struck at foreign engineers
working on Algeria's gas fields.
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