23 injured as suicide bomber targets Algerian police base

AT LEAST 23 people were wounded yesterday when a suicide bomber drove a four-wheel-drive vehicle packed with explosives at a paramilitary police base in a Sahara desert town.

The attack was the first in the town of Tamanrasset, an oasis about 1,240 miles south of the Algerian capital, and underscored mounting instability in the Sahara desert after the conflict in nearby Libya. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack, but al-Qaeda’s north African wing, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has for years been waging an insurgency in Algeria and neighbouring countries.

The wounded people were 15 gendarmes, or paramilitary police, five members of the civil protection service and three civilians who were passing when the attack happened. One of the wounded gendarmes is seriously injured.

The casualties were caused by a Toyota four-wheel-drive which exploded after it was driven at the perimeter of the gendarmes’ base early yesterday morning.

Security experts say the conflict in Libya, which last year forced out leader Muammar Gaddafi, has allowed weapons looted from Gaddafi’s arsenals to fall into the hands of insurgents from neighbouring countries.

This has provided a boost to the operations of AQIM, and also helped fuel a separatist rebellion by Tuareg tribesman in Mali, to the south.