Algeria:Algerians angered by the worst bombings in years voiced fears yesterday that the country could return to the political bloodshed of the 1990s.
"We thought the days of terror were over. I am still shocked. I am afraid," said Mohamed Rabhi, a young student drinking a coffee in a central Algiers street.
Interior minister Nourredine Yazid Zerhouni said the suicide blasts that killed 33 in the capital on Wednesday may have been designed to disrupt next Tuesday's parliamentary polls and torpedo efforts to put a definite end to years of political violence.
"We shouldn't exclude the possibility that there were also other interests not wanting to see the Algerian state recover, rebuild and work more effectively," he said without elaborating.
Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the bombings. The group has taken responsibility for several deadly attacks on police, troops and foreigners since January. Police threw up extra checkpoints and deployed additional patrols around the Mediterranean port city of three million people. Many voiced fear the blasts might relaunch the chaos of the 1990s, when tens of thousands of Islamist rebels fought security forces in a country the size of western Europe.
"Fear has returned," said a 60-year-old man. "I've asked my youngest brother to pay attention when using public transport. You never know."
Echorouknewspaper reported that a black Mercedes rigged with 500kg of explosives was defused by police on Wednesday near the house of police chief Col Ali Tounsi. Some placed indirect blame for the carnage on the government, saying it had been too soft on Islamist rebels under what they say is a flawed policy of national reconciliation.
"The terrorists should be put up against a wall and shot. Enough of the hand of peace," said Mohammed, a car mechanic in the city's upmarket Hydra district.
Nato secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer joined an international chorus of condemnation. "There can never be any justification for this violence," he said.
- (Reuters, additional reporting by Abdelaziz Boumzar in Algiers and Ingrid Melander in Brussels)