Trained suicide bombers at large in Algeria-paper
Source: Reuters
ALGIERS, May 6 (Reuters) - Five Algerians have completed training as suicide bombers and joined an active al Qaeda armed group in the oil- and gas-exporting country, a newspaper with good links to the security services said on Sunday. "They pose five serious threats to security as long as they are not neutralised," Liberte newspaper said. "Brainwashed and well trained, they have joined the terrorists in the field." The OPEC member country has been on high alert against attacks following April 11 suicide bombings in Algiers that killed 33 people in the first such suicide attacks since political violence broke out in 1992. The attacks were claimed by al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, the Algerian-based group Liberte said had trained the five young men in suicide bombing techniques. Analysts say the suicide attacks in the capital showed that the al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), was adopting the techniques of al Qaeda to show its loyalty to the global al Qaeda network. The GSPC normally carried out conventional bombings and ambushes on police and troops in rural areas. The daily said the five had recorded their last will and testament on a CD Rom as part of their deployment with al Qaeda fighters in the region of El Oued, 700 km (440 miles) southeast of the capital, near the Tunisian border. According to an unnamed security source quoted by the paper, the would-be suicide bombers received intensive training in a camp located in a palm grove in the village of S'hine. According to the source, Liberte said, the al Qaeda branch in the region of El Oued had hired a minimum of 60 fighters over the past three years for attacks in both Iraq and Algeria. Police were not available to comment on the report. The April bombings raised fears that the north African country might return to the intense political violence of the 1990s when tens of thousands of Islamists guerrillas fought the army to try to set up Islamic rule. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika offered an amnesty for Islamist rebels last year as part of a peace and reconciliation policy aimed at ending almost 15 years of political violence. More than 2,000 rebels were freed from jail and dozens of fighters surrendered under the amnesty, which lasted from late February to late August 2006. But al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb's chief, Abdelmalek Droudkel, has rejected the amnesty offer and vowed to fight on until purist Islamic rule is established.
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