Who Said Terror Doesn't Pay?

The Islamists must be doubled over with laughter with this news out of Algeria. Not only do Islamic terrorists for the most part walk free, but now they may be financially compensated.

You can't make this stuff up.

Algerian authorities are considering paying financial compensation to more than 13,000 people with links to an Islamist revolt under an amnesty aimed at ending civil strife, state media said on Sunday.

The oil-exporting country started implementing a charter for peace and reconciliation in 2006 in a drive by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to end Islamist-linked violence that cost the lives of up to 200,000 people since the early 1990s.

"13,014 compensation requests from the victims of the national tragedy have been accepted (for consideration) under the implementation of the charter for peace and national reconciliation," National Solidarity Minister Djamal Ould Abbes was quoted by the official news agency APS as saying.

The minister said 23,396 people had applied for compensation for losses incurred during the intense political violence of the 1990s when tens of thousands of Islamist guerrillas fought the army to try to set up Islamic rule.

Officials have said a decision on how many requests would be approved is expected in coming months.

A 2006 reconciliation law offers Islamic guerrillas still fighting the authorities a pardon if they lay down their weapons provided they were not responsible for massacres, rapes and bombings of public places.

It also provides compensation to families who fell into poverty due to the absence or death of relatives who joined the rebellion, and to people who were dismissed from their jobs for links to the rebellion -- the two main categories of applicant referred to by Ould Abbes.

The law also offers compensation to families whose loved ones were killed by rebels and to families whose relatives disappeared and were believed killed by the security forces.

Authorities have not disclosed how many compensation requests have been received under those categories.

I can understand rewarding families affected by the rebels, but it's insane to remunerate anyone related to the rebels themselves.

Wanted: New Al Qaeda No. 1 Man in North Africa

Send your resume quickly. Ability to talk trash, murder innocents and explosives training helpful, but not necessary. Anyone with the name Abu Musab is strongly deterred from applying.

The current occupant of the job may soon be stepping down involuntarily.

The leader of al Qaeda's wing in north Africa is believed to be among several Islamist militants besieged by Algerian government soldiers in the Kabylie region east of Algiers, two newspapers reported on Thursday.

Abdelmalek Droudkel, also known as Abu Mus'ab Abd el-Wadoud, leader of the al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, may be among other rebels troops have been surrounding for a week in a mountainous area between the two eastern provinces of Tizi Ouzou and Bejaia, Liberte and El Watan said.

Backed by helicopters, an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 soldiers are taking part in the operation, Liberte said, citing well-informed sources.

The authorities were not immediately available to comment on the reports.

The Kabylie region is known to be the main base for the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat or GSPC, which changed its name to al Qaeda in January 2007.

The group has claimed responsibility for several attacks, including twin suicide bombings that targeted U.N. offices and a court building in Algiers in December 2007,killing 41 people, 17 of them United Nations staff.

Actually, I Blame Islam

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.

Al-Qaeda Claims Responsibility for Algerian Bombings

No shocker here.

AL-QAEDA'S North African wing said two of its members carried out overnight twin car bombings in the Algerian capital in which up to 67 people were killed.

The attacks were carried out in Algiers by Abdul-Rahman al-Aasmi and Ami Ibrahim Abou Othman, the group said on an Islamist website.

It showed pictures of the suicide bombers holding assault rifles.

Earlier, Algerian Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni blamed the attacks on the local branch of al-Qaeda, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

"We are sure that it is the work of the GSPC," Mr Zerhouni said.

A number of UN workers were killed in the blasts.

I wonder what the Algerians and the UN have done to anger them?

Some variations on the names of the two perpetrators show up on past Club Gitmo databases, though it's not apparently them. Hard to tell with those names, however.