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Al-Qaeda ally says it killed 4 Algerian police

ALGIERS, Algeria - An al-Qaeda affiliate in North Africa took responsibility for a suicide bombing east of the Algerian capital that killed four police officers, according to a statement posted yesterday on extremist Web sites.

ALGIERS, Algeria - An al-Qaeda affiliate in North Africa took responsibility for a suicide bombing east of the Algerian capital that killed four police officers, according to a statement posted yesterday on extremist Web sites.

A vehicle rigged with explosives slammed into the Naciria police station Wednesday, killing the officers and injuring 20, the Interior Ministry said. The blast followed the Dec. 11 twin suicide bombings at U.N. offices and a government building, which killed at least 37 people in Algiers.

"With the grace and guidance of God, he surprised the apostates and destroyed the entire headquarters over their heads, leaving behind dozens of dead and injured among the police," read the statement yesterday from the group Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa.

The statement justified the attack by saying security forces in Algeria "torture Muslim youth and shove them into dark prisons while waging war on jihad and the mujahedeen on behalf of their masters in the Elysee Palace and the White House."

Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa emerged from an alliance between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and an Algerian Islamist movement known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat.

Security forces have been on maximum alert this week, after three trucks were stolen in the Algiers region, the newspaper Liberte reported. The vehicles included a fuel tanker, and officials fear they might be used in suicide attacks.

Along with yesterday's explosion, the December bombings and others in April were claimed by the same group, which has increasingly used vehicles packed with explosives to strike.

Other attacks this year include a suicide bombing inside a military barracks southeast of Algiers in July, killing 10 soldiers. Two months later, at least 28 died when an explosives-packed vehicle rammed into a coast guard barracks in the northern town of Dellys.