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Algerian Attacks Point to Al-Qaida's Drift West

The bomb attacks in Algiers Tuesday killed dozens, including members of a UN relief mission. A group affiliated with al-Qaida has claimed responsibility, causing German commentators to voice their concern about al-Qaida's migration westwards.

The North African branch of al-Qaida has claimed responsibility for the twin car bomb attacks that killed dozens in the Algerian capital Algiers Tuesday at both a UN facility and an Algerian government building. In a statement posted on an Islamist Web site, the group said that it carried out the bombings and referred to the UN offices as "the headquarters of the international infidels' den."

The attacks, which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has described as "unacceptable," have sparked worldwide condemnation. Among the victims of the blasts were at least 10 UN workers. The international body has ordered a review of security arrangements following the deadliest attack on its offices since a 2003 attack on its headquarters in Baghdad killed 22 people, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN special envoy to Iraq.

But the attacks are just the latest in a series of bombings to rock Algeria, a country attempting to recover from the violence of a bloody civil war in the 1990s. Most recently, in September, a car bomb killed 37 people at a coast guard barracks in the port of Dellys, east of Algiers. That month a suicide bomb attack ahead of a visit by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to Batna, southeast of the capital, left 20 dead and 107 wounded.

The death toll of Tuesday's attack is not yet clear: government officials put the figure at 26, but it is feared that there may have been more than 60 victims. "This is just unacceptable," Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Bali, Indonesia, where he is attending a global climate meeting. "I would like to condemn it in the strongest terms. It cannot be justified in any terms."

US President George W. Bush extended his condolences for those killed in the bombing, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the attacks "barbaric." Algeria's Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem said nothing could "justify the crime."

German commentators join the chorus of condemnation and express fear that al-Qaida may be shifting its focus further west and closer to home:

The conservative Die Welt writes:

"The most recent double attack fits the terror strategy. The attack on the (government council building) is meant to threaten the hated Algerian state, which is waging war against the Islamists. At the same time, the explosion in front of the UN building announces the terrorists' intention to intensify the battle they are waging on an international scale."

"For over a year, security experts both in and outside of Algeria have observed that more and more young men from countries in the Maghreb are being recruited to fight in the war in Iraq. At the same time, they warn about what would happen if a confederation was formed between radical Salafist groups involved in a bloody civil war with the Algerian state and al-Qaida, which makes its money and fighters available."

"In short, the Maghreb region will only get more and more dangerous. And what's more, in addition to Afghanistan/Pakistan and Iraq, North Africa -- from Morocco to Egypt -- has become a central location for al-Qaida. Numerous risks for Europe will come out of it. In the near future, the EU will have to deal with more terrorists from North Africa, and tourists will have to avoid these countries whenever possible."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"What's new is that the attacks on Tuesday were aimed at the new, well-kept quarters in the higher part of the city rather than in the colonial part of the city with its large public buildings. These parts of the city are clearly laid out and have been relatively safe during this year of terror, while before it was the villages and quarters of more ordinary people that suffered. What's also new is this time it wasn't only the Algerian state that was affected but also an international organization, the UN High Commission for Refugees."

"Terrorism in Algeria and its breeding ground, the radical Islamic underground, have often been viewed as being already defeated. And for several years, this assessment has been true. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's policies of reconciliation showed signs of success. The bulk of the former Islamist fighters came out of the mountains and accepted the offer of amnesty. But one hard core, which has called itself al-Qaida in the Maghreb for about a year, has remained. The group probably has only about 600 members, but it will continue to find new recruits as long as Algeria's eternal ills remain -- poverty, unemployment, nepotism and corruption."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Over the last several years, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has succeeded in getting the moderate Islamist forces involved in the peace process and in pressing ahead to some degree with a process of national reconciliation. Terror noticeably decreased. But the extremist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, whose alleged goal is a "theocracy in an early Islamic mould," has aligned itself with al-Qaida, which has declared war on the regimes in the western part of the Arab world and occasionally threatens Spain as well. In Iraq, where al-Qaida carries out terrorists acts under American occupation -- and particularly against the Iraqi population -- it has been getting calmer for a while now. Can it be that Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, has ordered several jihadists to leave Iraq and go to Algeria in order to increase the pressure there once again?."

-- Lucy Christie & Josh Ward, 12:30 p.m. CET