Bombers seek to turn Algeria into 'second Iraq'
The founder of the group that claimed responsibility for last week's deadly Algiers bombings called on militants to put down their weapons under a government amnesty and stop trying to turn Algeria into a 'second Iraq'.
Algiers: The founder of the group that claimed responsibility for last week's deadly Algiers bombings called on militants to put down their weapons under a government amnesty and stop trying to turn Algeria into a 'second Iraq'.
Hassan Hattab made the comments in a letter to President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika published yesterday by Echorouk daily after three bombs exploded in Algiers on Wednesday killing 33 people.
He described the group that claimed responsibility for the bombings, which changed its name in January from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) to Al Qaida Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, as "a small group that wants to transform Algeria into a second Iraq".
"I call on the militants to give up the fight and join national reconciliation," said Hattab, also known as Abu Hamza.
"We urge the President to reopen the national reconciliation file and extend its deadline. I can thump those seeking to take Algeria to its painful past," he added without elaborating.
Hattab remains an influential figure among Islamist fighters even though the group he helped found is now headed by another man, Abdul Malek Droudkel, also known as Abu Musab Abdul Wadud.
The explosions raised fears that the north African oil- and gas-exporting country might return to the intense political violence of the 1990s when tens of thousands of Islamists fought the army to try to set up Islamic rule. Bouteflika offered an amnesty for Islamist rebels last year as part of a peace and reconciliation policy aimed at ending almost 15 years of political violence in Algeria.
