Algeria

1
Algeria
LanguageArabic, French, Berber dialects
Population32,814,000
2
Background of France and Algeria

• Algeria first became a colony of France in 1830.
  After a disastrous war which ended in Algeria's
  independence in 1962, eight million Algerian
  residents were deprived of French nationality and
  hundreds of thousands of 'pieds noir' (French who
  settled in Algeria and were re-patriated at the
  end of the war) were forced home to a place which
  was not home.President Bouteflika's latest
  outburst has further strained Algerian-French
  relations which have been tense since France
  passed a law last year requiring textbooks to
  show the 'positive role' that the Republique
  played in its former colonies. The law was an
  embarassment for French president Jacques Chirac
  who said in January that it should be revamped.

3
Genocide In Algeria

• April 2006,
• Jan SOYKOK (JTW) - Algeria's president Abdelaziz
  Bouteflika has said that French colonization of
  his country Algeria was a form of genocide. In
  memoirs, some French officers have described
  torture of Algerians during the war, however
  France has never accepted its responsibility in
  tortures and massacres in Algeria. Paris says
  that the past should be left to historians. More
  than 1,5 million Algerians were massacred under
  the French rule
• Algeria in 2005 called on France to apologize for
  crimes committed during the colonial era.
  Bouteflika also urged Paris to admit its part in
  the massacres of 45,000 Algerians who took to the
  streets to demand independence as Europe
  celebrated victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
  French authorities then responded by playing down
  the comments, urging "mutual respect". The
  1954-1962 war of independence cost the lives of
  1.5 million Algerians, according to the Algiers
  government.

4
Timeline Of Attacks
November 1954 - Rebel attacks on French settlers
signal start of independence war by National
Liberation Front (FLN) guerrillas.
January 1957 - Battle of Algiers starts with
bombing campaign against settlers. French
paratroops use torture to extract information
about bombers and break up rebel cells.
May 1958 - French army backs settlers' uprising.
France's Fourth Republic collapses, General
Charles de Gaulle returns to power, visits
Algeria in early June. January 1960 - Settlers re
bel against De Gaulle's moves to negotiate with
FLN. April 1961 coup attempt by French army
generals in Algiers collapses.
March 1962 - France and FLN sign ceasefire.
Secret army organization made up of settlers and
army deserters sets Algerian cities ablaze in
attempt to ward off independence.
July 1962 - Algerian independence is proclaimed.
A million Europeans, dubbed "pieds noirs" (black
feet), flee for France. Algeria claims one
million Algerians died during the war.
1975 - President Valery Giscard d'Estaing becomes
the first French President to visit independent
Algeria. In
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Timeline of Attacks

• 1982, President Chadli Benjedid makes first
  official visit to France.
  
• 1992 - Algerian civil strife erupts after
  cancellation of elections. In 1993, Armed Islamic
  Group (GIA) fundamentalist rebels order
  foreigners to leave Algeria or die.
• December 1994 - GIA rebels hijack an Air France
  Airbus from Algiers to Marseille, kill three
  passengers before being shot dead by French
  police. Air France suspends flights to Algeria.
• 1995 - GIA rebels, accusing Paris of backing
  Algeria's rulers, kill 12 in a bomb campaign in
  France. Talks between presidents Jacques Chirac
  and Lamine Zeroual are cancelled.
• March 2003 - Chirac, in the first state visit by
  a French president since 1962, enjoys a warm
  welcome, saying a troubled past should now give
  way to reconciliation.
• June 2003 - Air France flies its first passenger
  airliner to Algeria in nine years.
  
• July 2006 - Bouteflika says in a speech that
  France's rule of the north African country was
  one of the "most barbaric forms of colonization
  in history".
• July 2007 - Newly elected French President
  Nicholas Sarkozy defends his refusal to apologize
  for colonial misdeeds saying leaders should focus
  on the future and not "beat their breasts" about
  the past.
• Nov 2007 - War veterans' leader Mohamed Said
  Abadou calls on Paris to apologize for colonial
  past.
  

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Recent Events
June 13, 2004 - The Salafist Group for Preaching
and Combat (GSPC), Algeria's leading armed Muslim
group which has ties to al-Qaeda, declares war on
foreign people and companies. December 10, 2006 -
A bus carrying foreign oil workers is bombed
10km west of Algiers, killing the Algerian driver
and a Lebanese worker. Nine others are wounded.
January 3, 2007 - A total of 14 armed men are
killed in clashes with security forces in and
around Tunis on December 23 and January 3, rare
serious breaches of security in a normally placid
country. February 13, 2007 - Seven bombs go off a
lmost simultaneously in Algeria, killing six
people east of the capital Algiers in an
elaborate assault by suspected Muslim fighters.
March 4, 2007 - Three Algerians and a Russian are
killed in a roadside attack southwest of Algiers
on a bus carrying workers for a Russian gas
pipeline construction company.
March 11, 2007 - A Moroccan blows himself up in a
Casablanca internet cafe, killing himself and
wounding four people after a tussle with the
owner of the cafe. Kindle Amazon's New Wireless
Reading Device
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Recent Events

• April 10, 2007 - Three suicide bombers detonate
  their explosive belts, killing themselves and at
  least one police officer and wounding more than
  20 people in a police raid on a safe house in
  Casablanca, during which a fourth man is shot
  dead.
• April 11, 2007 - Bombs kill 33 people in Algiers
  in attacks claimed by al-Qaeda.
  
• July 11, 2007 - A suicide bomber detonates an
  explosives-laden vehicle near a military
  barracks, killing himself and about eight other
  people in the restive Kabylie region east of
  Algiers. Al-Qaeda's north Africa wing claims
  responsibility.
• September 6, 2007 - A suicide bomb attack before
  a scheduled visit by President Abdelaziz
  Bouteflika kills 20 people and wounds 107 in
  Batna, 430km southeast of Algiers.
• September 8, 2007 - A car bomb kills 37 people at
  a coast guard barracks in the port of Dellys,
  100km east of Algiers. Al-Qaeda's North Africa
  wing later claims responsibility for the attacks
  in Batna and Dellys.
• October 7, 2007 - Hareg Zoheir, also known as
  Sofiane Abu Fasila, said to be second-in-command
  of al-Qaeda's North African wing and suspected of
  planning most of the recent suicide bombings in
  Algeria, is killed.
• December 11, 2007 - Two blasts kill 20 people in
  Algiers one kills 15 people near the
  Constitutional Court building and the other kills
  five near the UN offices and a police station in
  the smart Hydra district.

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Work Cited

• http//mwcnews.net/content/view/18674/57/
• www.Maps.com
• http//uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20071129/tpl-uk-fran
  ce-algeria-history-43a8d4f_1.htm
  
• http//www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id30263
• http//www.theodora.com/flags/algeria_flag.html
• www.cia.gov