The family of an Algerian suicide bomber who killed dozens this week has a unique claim as to why he decided to slaughter innocent people:
He couldn't get a taxi license!The family of a suicide bomber who killed 17 U.N. staff in Algiers this week said he joined Islamist rebels after failing to get a taxi license and was motivated by "ignorance, not poverty", a newspaper reported.
"We got nothing from al Qaeda, we are still very poor," Bechla Rabah's oldest son Younes told Echorouk. "Ignorance, not poverty, this is what pushed my father to blow himself up."
Al Qaeda's North African wing claimed responsibility for twin car bombs on Tuesday that killed more than 30 people at the U.N. offices and a court building, saying it had targeted "the slaves of America and France".
It was the deadliest assault in Algiers in years and followed a string of similar bombings after Islamist rebels in the country adopted the al Qaeda name at the start of the year.
Algerian newspapers said Rabah's days were numbered as he was in a final stages of cancer. They said two of his sons were members of the Islamic Armed Group also known by its French initials GIA and were killed by security forces in the 1990s.
Rabah's 82-year-old mother told Echorouk she heard of his death from the newspapers and had not seen her son in more than a decade. Rabah, who was 63, joined Islamist rebels in 1995.
Meanwhile, today a ferry bound for Algeria from France was turned around after a
bomb alert.
A ferry sailing from France to Algeria with 1,400 people on board was turned around after a bomb alert on Saturday and passengers were evacuated on return to Marseille, police said.
A police spokesman said the alert was triggered by an anonymous phone call to the Algerian consulate in Lyon warning of a "car packed with explosives".
The ferry, the "Tarik", arrived back in the French port of Marseille shortly after 1700 GMT on Saturday accompanied by a fire boat and was met by a fleet of ambulances.
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