Al Qaeda's North Africa Branch Continuing to Make Noise

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb--the group's North Africa branch--is a dangerous group that should be familiar to CBN viewers. I focused on them last year (watch story here) and also mentioned their disturbing growth in a recent piece on the state of Al Qaeda that you can watch here. It's an organization that is growing increasingly bold, as evidenced by it's latest deadly act of terror. Here's more, from Reuters:

A bomb at an Algerian military academy killed 43 people and wounded 45 on Tuesday, the interior ministry said, one of the bloodiest incidents in years in the OPEC member state.

A ministry statement said the attack targeted the gendarmerie training school at Issers, 55 km (34 miles) east of the capital Algiers. It said 42 of the dead were civilians and one was a gendarme -- an armed paramilitary soldier.

The bombing follows several recent attacks by al Qaeda's north African wing, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The local al Qaeda affiliate has claimed several attacks including the twin suicide bombings of U.N. offices and a court building in Algiers in December 2007 which killed 41 people.

Witnesses said Tuesday's attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who rammed his car into a group of prospective recruits lining up to get into the school for qualifying exams.

"Most of the dead were young men aged between 18 and 20. They were in line waiting to enter the school for recruiting exams when they were mowed down by the blast," a witness said.

Look for Al Qaeda to claim responsibility for this attack soon enough--it has the group's bloody handprints all over it. And look for North Africa to continue to be a focus for Al Qaeda as it turns its attention from Iraq (where it's been largely routed) to other potential terror havens.