Insurgency in the Maghreb: Two car bombs explode in Algiers, Algeria, one near the Supreme Constitutional Court and the other near the offices of the United Nations.
Algiers ( al-JEERZ; Arabic: , romanized: al-Jazir; Berber languages: Dzayer; French: Alger, [ale]) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145 and in 2020 was estimated to be around 4,500,000. An estimate puts the population of the larger metropolitan city to be around 8,000,000. Algiers is located on the Mediterranean Sea and in the north-central portion of Algeria.Algiers is situated on the west side of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea. The modern part of the city is built on the level ground by the seashore; the old part, the ancient city of the deys, climbs the steep hill behind the modern town and is crowned by the Casbah or citadel (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), 122 metres (400 ft) above the sea. The casbah and the two quays form a triangle.
The insurgency in the Maghreb refers to the Islamist insurgency in the Maghreb and Sahel regions of North Africa that followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002 to the present day. The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Algerian and other Maghreb governments fighting the militants have worked with the United States and the United Kingdom since 2007, when Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara began. While the 2011 Arab Spring affected support for the insurgency, it also presented military opportunities for the jihadists. In 2012, AQIM and Islamist allies captured the northern half of Mali, until being fought back less than a year later following a French-led foreign intervention, which was succeeded by the Sahel-wide Operation Barkhane. In Libya, the ISIL/ISIS/IS/Daesh has been able to control some limited territory in the ongoing civil war since 2014, amid allegations of local collaboration between the rival AQIM and ISIL.