09/05/2007
Algerian police have arrested six suspects in Boumerdes, for their alleged involvement in the April 11th suicide attacks, Algerian press reported on Tuesday (May 8th). Previous reports said five would-be suicide bombers have been detained after the attacks. The suspects are charged with having carried out "logistical preparations" for the attacks, and some of them were brought to court earlier this week. According to Ech Chourouk daily, the Algiers bombings, which claimed the lives of 30 people and injured 300, have triggered the anger of some of the more moderate terrorist leaders. Ech Chourouk says a number of terrorist leaders abandoned the al-Qaeda organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), for committing massacres of civilians. The daily quoted one of the repentant emirs, Brahim Boufarik, as saying that many members of the GSPC "disagree with the new strategy of the suicide bombers, imported from Iraq and useful only for al-Qaeda" and allegedly negotiated their surrender with the authorities.