Algeria

The CIA has removed its station chief in Algeria from his post amid an investigation by the Justice Department of allegations that the officer drugged and raped two Algerian women, according to current and former U.S. government officials familiar with the matter. The officer, identified in an affidavit as Andrew Warren, served as the agency's top official in Algeria until late last year, and previously held high-level positions in Afghanistan and Egypt, officials said.

Weeks before his reelection bid, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced Saturday that the government would cancel hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of debt owed by farmers and livestock producers, the state-run news agency reported. Voters in the natural-gas-rich North African country go to the polls for the presidential election on April 9. Bouteflika is running for a third term, an option that parliament gave him recently by changing the constitution.

Two bombs exploded at a railway station east of Algiers, killing 12 people, including a French engineer, said diplomats and security sources. It was the first time since the 1990s that a French citizen was killed in political violence in Algeria. The bombs went off at close intervals in the town of Beni Amrane, about 30 miles from the capital. Eight of the dead were soldiers and two were firemen, said a security source, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The former head of an Algerian militant group that played a key role in the country's bloody insurgency announced plans Saturday to form a political party. Madani Mezrag, who was commander of the Islamic Salvation Army in the 1990s, said in a statement that he would mobilize supporters from across the country for a national congress to launch the new party.

There is no honor among thieves, the angry Algerian said. Bassam Rifai was fuming that a member of his own gang in Zurich, Switzerland, had made off with expensive stolen merchandise, according to a wiretap in an investigation of alleged terrorism financing. "The group was in the mountains in Algeria waiting for the money," Rifai said, according to a transcript. "And he ripped me off. He stole computers I wanted to send to them in the mountains....

A pair of suicide bombings that killed at least 24 people here Wednesday have heightened fears of a coordinated offensive by Al Qaeda-linked groups against North Africa's governments and their Western allies, intelligence officials said. The attacks, which struck a building housing the prime minister's office in Algiers, as well as a suburban police station, were the first major bombings in the Algerian capital for several years.

The death toll from the suicide bombings in Algeria rose Thursday to 33, the government said, and police rolled out in force in this shaken capital, establishing highway checkpoints to reinforce security. Fifty-seven people remained hospitalized with injuries suffered Wednesday in blasts that struck the prime minister's office and a suburban police station, said Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni, who made his comments to the official APS news agency after visiting hospitals.

Bombings in Algeria and Morocco and other militant activity across North Africa have put U.S. and European authorities on alert that their interests in the region may be targeted for attack, officials say. On Saturday, two brothers with explosives-laden belts blew themselves up in Morocco's largest city, Casablanca, injuring one woman. Moroccan authorities later arrested at least one man suspected of being linked to the bombings, according to the official MAP news agency. The U.S.

The Algerian military surrounded an insurgent stronghold near the capital and targeted the area with bombs, in the latest in a series of raids that have killed more than 20 militants, news reports said Sunday. Government forces have stepped up sweeps of militant areas ahead of legislative elections scheduled this week. The newspaper Liberte said the air force bombed an insurgent stronghold near the region of Tizi Ouzou, about 60 miles east of Algiers.

Widespread cynicism and fears of violence kept many Algerians on Thursday away from balloting to elect a new parliament. "This year's election, like the ones before, is an electoral masquerade. The outcome was decided beforehand," said Amine Sidhoum, a human rights lawyer in Algiers. "We know that the president's party will win whether the people participate or not."