Riots In Algiers - Fertile Jihadi Ground Right Now
Explanation with vid:
Algiers - Helmeted police fired tear gas at stone-throwing rioters for a third straight day in Algeria’s second city of Oran on Wednesday, residents said.
Dozens of youths ransacked shops and set fire to rubbish in central streets in what residents said was the worst public disturbance in years in the usually tranquil Mediterranean port city of one million.
The immediate trigger was public anger over the relegation on Monday of the western town’s soccer team Mouloudia Oran to the north African country’s second division.
Possible underlying causes
But some newspaper commentators suggested the underlying cause was growing discontent over unemployment, lack of housing and what critics call an unresponsive political elite. More than 70% of Algerians under 30 are unemployed.
Wednesday’s sporadic clashes were not as intense as those of Monday and Tuesday, when hundreds of rioters smashed bank branches and shops and fought running skirmishes with the police in which more than 100 people were wounded.
Violent, unemployed youths
But they shared a feature of protests that have erupted in dozens of other towns in recent months over deteriorating economic and social conditions - the enthusiastic and often violent participation of unemployed youths.
The latest unrest followed a string of illegal strikes over pay by members of independent trade unions that shut down parts of the public sector temporarily.
Earlier this month the government had to send hundreds of police and gendarmes to Berriane town south of Algiers to end three nights of clashes between Arabs and minority Berbers in which two people were killed and hundreds left homeless.
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