ALGIERS, 28 June 2004 — Algeria’s largest radical Islamic group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), said yesterday it had been responsible for an explosion at a power plant near the capital earlier this month that had injured at least 11 people.
The Hamma power station outside Algiers, which feeds other power plants in the north African country, was shaken by a huge blast on the evening of June 21.
“The El-Borkane (volcano) phalange (of the GSPC) placed a lorry packed with explosives against the perimeter wall of the power station, which is considered to be the country’s most important and strategic electricity production facility,” the GSPC said in a statement posted on its website.
“The mujahideen tried to avoid loss of human life by reducing the explosive charge, which should have been bigger and destroyed the whole plant,” said the statement, which was dated June 22 and signed by the GSPC’s “information committee”.
“This operation was one of a series of acts of harassment which, even if they are not 100-percent successful, will give the lie to fabrications (by the authorities) about things like control of the security situation, assurances for foreign investors and residues of terrorism,” the GSPC said.
The group ended its statement with threats, telling the Algerian authorities their “rest time” was over.
Eleven people were injured, four of them seriously, in the Hamma plant explosion and the windows of nearby buildings were blown out. But the state-run power network was not significantly damaged, officials said at the time.
The government and state television initially said the explosion, which was heard across the capital, appeared to have been an accident.
But the local media speculated it had been an attack, citing anonymous witnesses and “observations”, such as the large crater visible in the pavement in front of the power station and the fact that its perimeter wall had collapsed “toward the inside”.
“Clues found on the scene indicate that it was a car bomb which targeted this important electricity production infrastructure,” French-language daily Liberte said on June 22. “And in that case, the objective would be to plunge the capital, along with a good part of the national territory, into darkness.”
