23 reported killed in 2 bombings in Algeria’s capital

ALGIERS, Algeria – Bombs heavily damaged the prime minister’s office and a police station Wednesday, killing at least 23 people and wounding about 160, Algeria’s official news agency said. Al-Qaida’s wing in North Africa claimed responsibility.\nPrime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, who was unhurt, called the attack a “cowardly, criminal terrorist act” as he spoke to reporters outside his wrecked offices.\nThe attacks were a devastating setback for the North African nation’s efforts to close the chapter on its Islamic insurgency that has killed 200,000 people. After years of relative calm, the al-Qaida affiliate recently has recently waged several smaller attacks in the oil- and gas-rich nation.\nAccording to Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, a spokesman for al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were carried out by three suicide bombers in trucks packed with explosives. The spokesman said the bombers targeted three sites: the government headquarters in Algiers and the Interpol offices and a special police forces building in the suburb of Bab Ezzouar.\nBelkhadem declined to say how many had been killed or wounded. The official APS agency said at least 23 people were killed and 160 wounded in the two attacks, but gave no breakdown. The other bombing targeted the police station of Bab Ezzouar, east of the capital, Algiers, on the road to its airport.\nWitnesses said at least one of the attacks appeared to have been a car bomb.\nA charred, wrecked car lay on the pavement about 98 feet from the gates of the government building – a modern white, block-like high-rise that also houses the Interior Ministry.\nOn Tuesday in neighboring Morocco, police surrounded a building in Casablanca where four terrorism suspects were holed up, causing three to flee and blow themselves up with explosives. The fourth was shot to death by a police sharpshooter as he apparently tried to detonate his bomb. A police officer was killed and 10 people, including a young child and a policeman, suffered injuries.\nSince five suicide bombings that killed 45 people in Morocco in May 2003, police have pursued an unprecedented crackdown on suspected militants, arresting thousands of people, including some accused of working with al-Qaida and its affiliates to plot attacks in Morocco and abroad.\nAlgeria’s insurgency broke out in 1992, after the army canceled legislative elections that an Islamic party appeared set to win.\nSince then, violence related to the insurgency has left an estimated 200,000 dead – civilians, soldiers and Islamic fighters – according to the government.\nMilitary crackdowns and amnesty offers had turned them into a ragtag assembly of fighters in rural hideouts, and for several years, the government appeared to have them basically under control.\nAlgeria’s main militant group recently changed its name to al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa and began targeting foreigners – signs that the country’s dwindling ranks of Islamic fighters were regrouping.\nThe latest attacks, especially on Belkhadem’s office, showed that the militants are far from beaten, even though experts say that they number perhaps no more than several hundred people.\nBelkhadem expressed bitterness at insurgents who refused the amnesty offers.\n“The Algerian people stretched out a hand to them, and they respond with a terrorist act,” he said.\nAl-Jazeera said its office in Rabat, Morocco, received a telephone call from a spokesman for al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, identified as Abu Mohammed Salah, who claimed responsibility for the attacks.\n–Associated Press Writer Aidan Lewis in Algiers contributed to this report.