|
ALGIERS: Algeria reeled Thursday from the aftershock
of two suicide bombings that killed at least 24 people and fuelled
fears of an increasingly powerful al-Qaeda front in the North Africa
region.
Prime Minister Abdelaziz
Belkhadem had struck a defiant pose in the immediate wake of the
deadly blasts in Algiers and vowed that national elections scheduled
for May 17 would go ahead.
“The objective was a media
provocation shortly before the election,” Belkhadem told Al-Arabiya
television late Wednesday.
“Those who resort to violence
exclude themselves from the political process and elections form
part of that political process,” he added.
The bombings, which followed
closely from suicide blasts in neighboring Morocco, were claimed by
al-Qaeda’s branch in North Africa, which published photographs of
what it said were the three bombers in an Internet statement.
The statement on an Islamist
website often used by the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden said
the explosions killed at least 53 people.
The Algerian civil defense
department put the toll at 24, but said the figure was likely to
rise with around 50 of the 222 injured listed as being in a serious
condition.
Terrorism experts warned that the
attacks signaled a wider resurgence of Islamist militancy in the
region that could spread to countries like Tunisia, Libya and
further south to the Sahel—an arid strip along the southern Sahara
that stretches across six countries from Senegal to Chad.
“We now have a belt which
extends from Morocco to Somalia,” said Magnus Ranstorp, a
terrorism specialist at the Swedish National Defense College.
“The key question is: are they
going to internationalisz that even further, with action in France
for example or attacks on French interests, or actions in Spain by
Moroccans?” Ranstorp said.
The first of Wednesday’s
attacks was carried out by a bomber who drove an explosives-laden
car into a guard post outside the government headquarters in central
Algiers, police said.
-- AFP
|
