By Conner Allen
Syria Times reported on December 12th, 2007 that militants, possibly associated with al-Qaeda, detonated two car bombs in an affluent neighborhood in Algiers, Algeria. 67 people were killed, several of them being students passing by in a school bus and at least one a United Nations official. Thirteen United Nations officials are missing. The article quotes U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres as saying, “I have no doubt that the U.N. was targeted.” Syria Times reports that the bombs were set off by al-Qaeda’s North African wing, formerly called “the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.” Syria Times briefly touches on Algeria’s violent history noting that it is a major gas supplier to Europe and that it is “recovering from more than a decade of violence that began in 1992 when the then government scrapped elections an Islamic party was poised to win. About 200,000 people have been killed in the subsequent violence.
