"Algerian election set, where are the candidates?" by Aomar Ouali and Paul Schemm | Associated Press, January 18, 2014
ALGIERS — Algeria on Friday formally set its next presidential election for April 17, but three months before what could be one of the most important votes in the country’s history, no one is sure who is running.
The elections could offer a rare chance for change and new personalities in a country long dominated by aging military figures.
Ailing three-term President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, however, hasn’t made it clear whether he will run again. Even if the 76-year-old steps aside for a new generation, he or his military and government cohorts could have a huge influence on the election of his successor.
The uncertainty before the April vote comes at a pivotal time as the country faces economic turmoil, endless protests, and a revival of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African branch of the terror network that grew out of the Algerian radical Islamist movement.
Algeria has long been run by the generation that fought in the 1958-1962 war for independence against France. Once the world’s youngest foreign ministers in the 1960s, Bouteflika took the presidency in 1999 and has dominated the country since.
The lack of clarity on whether he is running has kept other possible contenders from announcing their candidacies as the time for campaigning slips away.
‘‘It’s the first time since the establishment of political pluralism in Algeria that the candidates . . . aren’t known on the eve of the convocation of the electoral body,’’ said Mohammed Saidj, a political analyst at University of Algiers.
Bouteflika’s political party, the National Salvation Front, insists he will run for a fourth term, but there are creeping suspicions he is not up for it.
After he had a stroke in April, he spent four months convalescing in Paris and has appeared only sporadically on television, always seated and barely audible when he speaks.
The president returned Thursday after four days in a French hospital for a check-up amid rumors that he is unlikely to survive another five-year term.
‘‘Algeria needs today a president who possesses all his mental and physical faculties to deal with the national and regional context,’’ said Abderrazzak Mukri, the leader of the Islamist opposition alliance. ‘‘Those pushing him to run are irresponsible and only see their own interests and not those of the nation.’’
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb had been soundly beaten by Bouteflika. Now it has been reborn as a Saharan organization active in Algeria’s deep south and in the little-governed areas of Mali, Niger, and Libya.
"2 at Guantanamo deported to Algeria" by Ben Fox | Associated Press, December 06, 2013
MIAMI — Two men who had been held without charge at Guantanamo Bay for more than a decade have been sent back to their native Algeria against their will as part of a renewed effort to gradually close the prison, officials said Thursday.
Both prisoners, Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane and Belkecem Bensayah, had resisted being returned to Algeria because of fears they might face persecution and further imprisonment, according to their US lawyers.
Both Ameziane, 46, who was captured in Pakistan, and Bensayah, a 51-year-old captured in Bosnia, fled Algeria during the country’s civil war in the 1990s.
"Algerian military plane crashes, killing 77" by Aomar Ouali and Paul Schemm | Associated Press, February 12, 2014
ALGIERS — An Algerian military transport plane slammed into a mountain Tuesday in the country’s rugged eastern region, killing 77 people and leaving just one survivor, the country’s defense ministry said.
Air traffic controllers lost radio and radar contact with the US-built C-130 Hercules just before noon and dispatched helicopters to try to find it. The plane was discovered in pieces on Mount Fortas near the town of Ain Kercha, 30 miles southeast of Constantine, the main city in eastern Algeria.
Oh, maybe it was an accident seeing as it was one of our pieces of junk.
The plane had taken off from the southern Saharan city of Tamanrasset, which has a massive military presence due to its proximity to the country’s unstable southern borders, and was heading to Constantine.
It carried 74 passengers and four crew members, the military said. Poor weather was blamed for the crash.
Earlier in the day, Algerian government officials and Algerian state media had reported that the plane had 99 passengers.
The lone survivor — a soldier — suffered head injuries and was treated at a nearby military facility before being flown to the military hospital in Algiers, a retired intelligence officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Civil defense officials at the snowy crash site said that the plane broke into three parts, and that children were among the dead.
It didn't disintegrate like in Shanksville?
--more--"
What is with all the pieces intact anyway?
So which candidates were on the plane?
