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(CAIRO, Egypt) —The North African branch of al Qaeda claimed responsibility Friday for a devastating pair of attacks in Algeria that killed at least 55 people, in a statement carried by an Arab news station.

In an audio statement, a spokesman for the group, Salah Abu Mohammed, described the attacks on a police academy and a Canadian engineering firm as retaliation against security forces for their crackdown on militants. The statement was aired on Al-Jazeera television.

On Tuesday, a suicide bomber rammed a car full of explosives into a line of applicants waiting to register at a police academy, killing 43 in the town of Les Issers.

Twin attacks at dawn Wednesday killed another 12 in the neighboring town of Bouira. The 12 were Algerian employees of a Canadian engineering and construction firm, SNC-Lavalin.

Abu Mohammed insisted in his audio statement that his group does not target civilians.

There was no way to authenticate Friday’s message but in the past militant groups have delivered responsibility claims via Al-Jazeera. Subscribe=>

Source: Time More Top News

A French armored vehicle on its way to Sarobi, where insurgents killed 10 paratroopers Tuesday.

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents mounted their most serious attacks in six years of fighting in Afghanistan over the last two days, including a coordinated assault by at least 10 suicide bombers against one of the largest American military bases in the country, and another by about 100 insurgents who killed 10 elite French paratroopers.
The attack on the French, in a district near Kabul, added to the sense of siege around the capital and was the deadliest single loss for foreign troops in a ground battle since the United States-led invasion chased the Taliban Read more »

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents mounted their most serious attacks in six years of fighting, one a complex attack with multiple suicide bombers on an American military base on Monday night, and another by some 100 insurgents on French forces in a district east of the capital, killing 10 French soldiers and wounding 21 others, military officials said Tuesday.

Three American soldiers were wounded and six members of the Afghan special forces in the attack on the base in the eastern province of Khost, bordering Pakistan, the Afghan military spokesman, Gen. Zaher Azimi, said. The battle lasted all night, 10 suicide bombers were killed or blew themselves up, and the insurgents were repulsed without entering the base, he said.

The heavy fighting in the two places is a sharp escalation in insurgent operations in what is already Afghanistan’s deadliest year since the American invasion in 2001. Insurgents have increased their use of roadside bombs and suicide bombs but have also shown a growing sophistication with several well-organized, complex operations employing multiple attackers and different types Read more »

Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri

An audio tape purportedly made by al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al Zawahri has accused Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and other politicians of trying to destablise Pakistan at the behest of the United States.
The English-language tape was dropped off by an unidentified man at an office of Pakistan’s ARY One television channel on Saturday, the station’s news director said, but its authenticity could not be immediately verified.

An Arab journalist based in Islamabad who has met Zawahri said it appeared to be the al Qaeda deputy leader’s voice.

“I want to speak to you today regarding the miserable condition to which Pakistan has deteriorated,” Read more »

Abu Khabab al-Masri in an undated photo.

CAIRO, Egypt — Al Qaeda confirmed in a Web statement Sunday the death of a senior commander known as a top explosives and poisons expert, who is believed to have been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan last week.

The statement said Abu Khabab al-Masri and three other commanders were killed. It did not give details on when or how they were killed, but Pakistani authorities have said they believe al-Masri died in an American airstrike last Monday on a compound near the Afghan border.

Pakistani officials have said six people were killed in that strike, in the country’s lawless South Waziristan tribal region.

Al-Masri, an Egyptian militant whose real name is Midhat Mursi, had a $5 million bounty Read more »

A $25 million reward has been offered for Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second-in-command.

U.S. counterterrorism officials said Friday they have seen no evidence to support a media report that al Qaeda’s No. 2 official, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may be critically wounded or dead.
A senior intelligence official told CNN there is no evidence to support a CBS News report on al-Zawahiri, and no reason to believe it is true.

“This is utterly uncorroborated, and at this point there is no reason to believe that al-Zawahiri has been injured or killed,” another intelligence official said.

According to the CBS report, a letter intercepted in Pakistan refers to the 57-year-old physician by name and requests a doctor, saying he is in “severe pain” and his “injuries are infected.”

The July 29 letter was reportedly written by a local Taliban leader whose signature and Read more »

Diyala province has been difficult to pacify despite previous operations Iraqi forces backed by American troops have launched a major operation against insurgents in the north-eastern Iraqi province of Diyala. This is one of the last strongholds of al-Qaeda militants in the country. The operation was launched at dawn. A curfew was imposed across the province as troops and police started deploying in the regional capital, Baquba. In the capital Baghdad, a vehicle ban has been imposed following Monday’s suicide bomb attacks on Shia pilgrims. Twenty-five people were killed in co-ordinated bombings carried

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