Magreb

DUBAI (Reuters) – Al Qaeda’s North Africa wing said it was behind a deadly suicide bombing in Algeria on Sunday, according to a statement posted on the Internet on Wednesday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is slated to arrive here in Tehran on Saturday.

TIZI OUZOU, Algeria (Reuters) – A car bomb exploded near a police station in a town east of Algiers on Sunday, wounding 25 people including four policemen, the government of the OPEC member country said.

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) – Egyptian police shot dead an unidentified African migrant and detained two others while they were trying to cross illegally into Israel on Friday, a security official and a medical source said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian oil executive detained in Libya since last year has been freed, his employers LUKOIL said on Thursday, hours before Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was due to host the country’s prime minister.

CAIRO (Reuters) – An Egyptian criminal court found the owner of a Red Sea ferry not guilty of manslaughter on Sunday over the deaths of more than 1,000 passengers when the vessel caught fire and sank in 2006, court sources said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Middle East envoy Tony Blair is preparing to travel to the Gaza Strip this week in what would be the highest-level visit by a Western official since Hamas took control a year ago, Palestinian and Western officials said.

ALGIERS (Reuters) – Publicity, ransom money and damage to lucrative Maghreb tourism are the possible prizes for al-Qaeda’s north Africa wing from the kidnapping of two Austrian adventure holidaymakers.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema held talks Saturday in Libya on a joint treaty to settle the question of compensation for Italy’s colonisation of the country.