“The explosion resulted in the destruction of the Toyota vehicle which carried the Frenchmen and the death of those who were in it, thanks be to God.” Feel the love.
“France on Al-Qaeda alert after attack,” from The Australian (thanks to PRCS):
AL-QAEDA’S branch in North Africa has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Algeria that wounded two French people and one Italian, hours after it had threatened French targets in the region.
In an “audio statement” posted on the Internet and received by Al-Arabiya television’s office in Algiers, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said one of its militants carried out the attack with a car laden with “more than 250 kilos of explosives”.
Friday’s bombing in Lakhdaria, about 75 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Algiers, “killed three foreigners” and wounded others, Al-Arabiya quoted the group as claiming.
But the Algerian interior ministry said in a statement that no-one was killed while nine people suffered injuries which were not life-threatening.
Al-Arabiya aired part of the audio recording, in which the spokesman of the group said “the heroic martyrdom-seeker Othman Abu Jaafar” rammed a Mazda car into a convoy in which “French crusaders working on building the biggest dam” in the area were travelling.
The news channel showed a picture of a militant carrying a machinegun, with the inscription “martyrdom-seeker Othman Abu Jaafar” written on it, which accompanied the statement.
The targeted French men were escorted by Algerian army and police vehicles at the time, the recording said.
“The explosion resulted in the destruction of the Toyota vehicle which carried the Frenchmen and the death of those who were in it, thanks be to God,” the spokesman added.