Algeria bombing kills one, wounds Westerners
Source: Reuters
(Adds background, security measures) By Lamine Chikhi ALGIERS, Dec 10 (Reuters) - A bomb exploded beside a bus carrying foreign oil workers in an upscale Algiers suburb on Sunday, killing the Algerian driver and wounding nine people, including four Britons and an American, authorities said. The bombing, the first armed attack on expatriates in years, took place in a heavily protected neighbourhood that is home to some government ministers as well as the Sheraton Hotel, where several foreign firms have their offices. "I was in a bus when I heard a big explosion. Then we heard gunfire," Mohammed Aziouz, an 18-year-old student travelling in another bus nearby at the time, told Reuters. "A moment passed. And then police wearing 'ninja' balaclava hoods entered our bus and started checking identity papers. Those who didn't have them were taken out for verification. The smell of (explosive) powder was very intense." Some expatriate oil executives said they would step up security as a result of the late afternoon attack in the Bouchaoui district, 10 km (six miles) west of Algiers. The official APS news agency described the blast as a roadside bomb. APS said the wounded were four Britons, two Lebanese, an American, an Algerian and a Canadian. All but one were released from hospital after treatment. Some residents spoke of a gunman who got out of a car parked at the kerb as the bus approached and opened fire at the vehicle and its occupants. Residents said the bus was ferrying employees of Brown Root Condor, a joint venture of Halliburton <HAL.N> subsidiary Kellog, Brown and Root <KBR.N> and Condor Engineering, an affiliate of Algerian state energy group Sonatrach. ISLAMIST REBELS Reporters who later approached the residential and tourist area heard two explosions. Residents said they appeared to be the result of work by bomb disposal teams, but there was no immediate confirmation of that. Witnesses saw a police forensic team wearing white overalls enter the area. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday's attack but residents said they suspected Islamist rebels who have consistently refused peace overtures from the government. Sporadic clashes between Islamist guerrillas and security forces normally take place in isolated rural areas of the oil-and-gas-exporting Mediterranean country. On Oct. 30, three people were killed and 24 wounded in near-simultaneous truck bomb attacks on two Algerian police stations, in what witnesses called the most elaborate assault by Islamist rebels in several years. The apparently coordinated overnight blasts in Reghaia town 30 km (20 miles) east of the capital and the eastern Algiers suburb of Dergana were the first bombings of police stations in Africa's second largest country for more than five years. Islamists began an armed revolt in 1992 after the then military-backed authorities, fearing an Iran-style revolution, scrapped a parliamentary election that an Islamist political party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), was set to win. Up to 200,000 people were killed in the ensuing bloodshed. The violence has sharply subsided in the past few years. The biggest foreign operator is U.S. Anadarko Petroleum Corp <APC.N> and the biggest foreign investor is Britain's BP <BP.L>. Other investors include Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> BHP Billiton <BLT.L>, ENI <ENI.MI>, Hess Corp <HES.N> and Repsol <REP.MC>. (Additional reporting by William Maclean and Larbi Louafi)
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