Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — Algeria has been struck by its first major bombing in 2012.

At least four people were killed and 19 others injured in a bombing of a

passenger bus in eastern Algeria on Feb. 19. Officials said the civilians

were killed when an improvised explosive device was detonated as the bus

drove in the Boumerdes province about 60 kilometers east of Algiers.

“There is a fear that other roadside bombs were placed in the area,” an official said.

This marked the first major bombing in Algeria in 2012 in an attack

attributed to Al Qaida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb. The bus that blew up had been following a military convoy, believed to have been the target of the insurgents.

A remote-controlled homemade bomb blast killed four people and wounded nine others on the road between Isser and Burj Menaiel east of Boumerdes,” the official Algerian Press Service said.

Conflicting reports from Boumerdes spoke of both civilian and military casualties. Boumerdes has been known as an AQIM stronghold, and this marked the second bombing in the area in less than a week. On Feb. 15, a bomb exploded near a police convoy, but nobody was injured.

Algeria has warned of a renewal of operations by AQIM ahead of national

elections on May 10. Officials said thousands of missiles and rockets were

smuggled from the arsenals of the late Col. Moammar Gadhafi in Libya to

neighboring states, including AQIM in Algeria.

One suspected AQIM weapons cache was found along the Algerian border

with Libya near Amenas. The cache was said to have contained Russian-origin

SA-7 man-portable, surface-to-air missiles.

  Al Qaida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, Boumerdes province, military convoy, Moammar Gadhafi, passenger bus, Roadside bombing of Algerian bus by Al Qaida kills 4, weapons cache found at Libyan border