Attack on U.N. in Algeria kills 26

Published 11:14 pm Tuesday, December 11, 2007

ALGIERS, Algeria — Two truck bombs set off in quick succession sheared off the fronts of U.N. offices and a government building in Algeria’s capital Tuesday, killing at least 26 people and wounding nearly 200 in an attack claimed by an affiliate of al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, in a posting on a militant Web site, called the U.N. offices “the headquarters of the international infidels’ den.”

Some sources said the toll was higher. An official at the civil protection agency who spoke on condition of anonymity said 45 people were killed. A doctor at a hospital who said he was in contact with staff at other hospitals put the death toll at a minimum of 60.

A U.N. official said at least 11 of its employees died. At least 177 people were injured.

The bombs exploded 10 minutes apart, devastating the U.N. refugee agency and other U.N. offices along a street in the upscale Hydra neighborhood, as well as Algeria’s Constitutional Council, which rules on the constitutionality of laws and oversees elections.

One damaged U.N. building stood with its insides spilling into a street littered with the soot-covered remains of parked cars crunched by the blast. The Constitutional Council lost chunks of its white facade, exposing red brick underneath, and a neck-deep crater was gouged in the road outside.

The blasts came on the month’s 11th day, a number rich in symbolism both for Algerians and for al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida has struck on the 11th in several countries, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attack in the United States. Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for attacks last April 11 that hit the Algerian prime minister’s office and a police station, killing 33 people.

Dec. 11 itself has meaning for Algerians. On that date in 1960, pro-independence demonstrations were held against the French colonial rulers. The Constitutional Council is located on December 11, 1960 Boulevard.

Al-Qaida’s self-styled North African branch’s Web posting said two suicide bombers attacked the buildings with trucks carrying 1,760 pounds of explosives each. Images were provided of the two “martyrs,” identified as Ibrahim Abu Uthman and Abdul Rahman Abu Abdul Nasser Al-Aassemi.

“This is another successful conquest … carried out by the Knights of the Faith with their blood in defense of the wounded nation of Islam,” said the statement, which claimed that more than 110 “Crusaders and apostates” were killed.

Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said the Algerian government was “certain” that al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa — formerly known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat — “was behind the attack.”

Although it is thought to have only several hundred fighters, the al-Qaida affiliate has resisted security sweeps to organize suicide bombings and other attacks as it shifts its focus from trying to topple the government to waging holy war and fighting Western interests.

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