VOA标准英语2008年-More Bombings Rock Algeria

Two more deadly car bombings have rocked Algeria, killing¹ at least 11 people according to state radio. This follows a suicide car bomb attack on Tuesday which officials say killed more than 40 people and injured 45. VOA's Nico Colombant has more from our West Africa bureau in Dakar.
　
The remains² of a passenger bus in Bouira, 20 Aug 2008, after it was targeted in a bomb attack

The latest attacks took place early Wednesday in the city of Bouira, more than 100 kilometers southeast of Algiers.

One of the attacks targeted a bus close to a hotel, while another car exploded near military headquarters.

Residents said they heard the blasts hundreds of meters away. A night guard said the hotel's windows were shattered.

The center of Bouira was immediately cordoned³ off.

Officials say the area between the capital Algiers, Bouira and the cities of Tizi Ouzou and Boumerdes, has become a quadrilateral of death.

They suspect members of the Islamic Maghreb branch of al-Qaida were behind the attacks.

The Middle East and North Africa editor for the Jane's Country Risk publication, David Hartwell, says terrorism in Algeria came about this decade after the end of the country's civil war. He says radical⁴ elements of former rebel groups, the Armed Islamic Group, known as the GIA, and the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known as the GSPC, have morphed into terrorists.

"The groups were slowly whittled⁵ down to sort of a rump of maybe 100 terrorists in each group," he said. "Eventually, the GIA announced a cease-fire . The GSPC continued fighting. But even that group was under severe pressure by the government."

Hartwell says it has been a slow progression from little activity, to more and more terrorist type attacks under the al-Qaida name.

"What happens in the 2004 and 2005 time frame, you had splits that were forming within the GSPC with some of the internal group disagreeing with decisions made by the more radical elements to try and hook up to an al-Qaida based agenda," he said. "That split was confirmed in 2005-2006 period when the group effectively renamed itself and rebranded itself al-Qaida Islamic Maghreb and that group has become much more active in the last two years. The number of attacks has increased."

Following Tuesday's attack 60 kilometers east of Algiers at a police academy in des Issers, the former head of the GSPC called on radicals⁶ to stop fighting, while the government said it would combat terrorism until it was totally eliminated.

Clashes between security forces and Islamic radicals have also been taking place recently. Sunday in Skikda, 350 kilometers east of Algiers, a firefight killed eight policemen, three soldiers and one civilian⁷, according to Algerian news reports.

The upsurge in violence precedes the holy Muslim month of Ramadan set to begin in September.

 

1 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

2 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

3 cordoned   

v.封锁，用警戒线围住( cordon的过去式 )

参考例句：

• Police cordoned off the area until the bomb was defused. 警方封锁了这个地区直到炸弹被拆除为止。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Police cordoned off the road and diverted commuter traffic. 警察封锁了道路并分流交通。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

5 whittled   

v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He whittled a simple toy from the piece of wood. 他把那块木头削成了一个简易的玩具。
• The government's majority has been whittled down to eight. 政府多数票减少到了八票。

6 radicals   

n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数

参考例句：

• Some militant leaders want to merge with white radicals. 一些好斗的领导人要和白人中的激进派联合。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The worry is that the radicals will grow more intransigent. 现在人们担忧激进分子会变得更加不妥协。 来自辞典例句

7 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。