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| Africa: North |
| Algeria sez June blast was a car boom |
| 2004-07-06 |
| Algerian authorities said for the first time on Tuesday that a blast at an electricity plant in Algiers last month was a car bomb, the first attack of its kind in Algeria since the mid-1990s. Islamist militants from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), Algeria’s top rebel group with links to al Qaeda, had claimed responsibility for the June 21 attack in which 11 people were injured. The government had until now said it was too early to say what caused the huge blast. The explosion "was caused by a terrorist attack with a car bomb," national police chief Ali Tounsi said. Last month’s blast alarmed Western diplomats because of the apparent ability of militants to penetrate the heavily guarded capital and attack an energy installation. Tounsi, who was speaking at a news conference, did not name the group that carried out the attack, the first of its kind in the country since the mid-1990s at the height of an Islamic militant insurrection. He said security forces would be reinforced in the capital with an extra 500 men. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |