Interesting press reaction - well worth reading the entire dispatch.

Special Dispatch-North Africa/Jihad & Terrorism Studies Project
April 17, 2007
No. 1546

Reactions in the Algerian and Arab Press to the Al-Qaeda Attacks in Algiers

To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit:
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD154607 .

The suicide bombings in Algeria on April 11, 2007, the first spectacular attack carried out by the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, brought the region to the forefront of the headlines in the Arab press - especially as they occurred in tandem with a number of abortive suicide bombings in Casablanca. In Algeria, fears for the future were underscored by memories of the dark years of the 1990s, and the press was unanimous in calling for concerted action against terrorism. Many also criticized government policies, in particular the National Reconciliation plan, which aims to reintegrate radical Islamists into society.

In the international Arab press, well-known commentator 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed criticized what he described as fallacious assumptions about the root causes of terrorism, saying that the terrorists are driven by religious extremism, and not by poverty, nor by the lack of democracy - which, he emphasized, they consider to be heresy.