Ban’s appointment of an investigative panel is as well-timed as his spontaneous trip to Algeria immediately following the attack. Practically before the dust had settled on the UN ill-fated facilities in Algiers, the Secretary General was on site and offering solidarity to the stricken staff. But now his call for the international investigation has hit an unexpected roadblock — the Algerian government which claims it was not consulted by the UN chief. Algeria’s UN Mission here in New York moreover says the Secretary General failed to discuss these plans for the investigation.

El Moudjahid, the government controlled newspaper quoted Algeria’s Prime Minister as complaining that the UN probe was a “unilateral move” by the Secretary General and was not “welcomed favorably” by the Algerian government.

Adding to this diplomatic dustup, Kemal Dervis, Director of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said that calls for security street barriers outside the UN offices were ignored by the Algerian authorities even after a spate of devastating car bombs in the coastal capital city in April. Dervis conceded that UN security in Algiers had been at its lowest level last year because previous attacks in the country had targeted the government and “at that time there was no indication that there was any targeting of the UN.”

He added however that the UN's resident chief had asked the Algerians “for particular security measures, including blocking off the street , and that the government did not respond to that.” The call for concrete barriers went incomprehensibly unheeded, likely given that the capital’s Hydra district was considered safe. Tragically the attack shattered such dangerous complacency. In a separate action the same day a suicide bomber blew up a student bus underlying the constant danger to civilians from fundamentalist attacks.

Given the infamous Al-Qaida bombing of the UN facilities in Baghdad at the Canal Hotel in August 2003 which killed 22 staff, it is quite unbelievable that clustered UN offices in Algiers, of all places, would have been essentially unprotected and banking on the global goodwill of the UN’s blue and white flag. Al-Qaida must have been morbidly amused.

The Al Qaida in the Maghreb is the local affiliate or franchise of the Osama Bin Laden global terror network; the group has targeted the Algerian government officials, security forces and civilians alike. A spate of deadly car bombs and attacks in Algeria during 2007 evoked an uncomfortable reminder of the 1990’s during which Islamic fundamentalists brought this secular but socialist country to the brink with a vicious insurgency. During 2007 there was a steady stream of terrorist attacks and car bombs carried out by Islamic militants; the attacks nonetheless raised a deadly calling card and should have been a wake up call at the UN complex in Algiers.

Al Qaida in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb holds the UN in contempt and refers to it in jihadi terminology , as a “slave of America.” After claiming responsibility for the suicide bomb attack, it called the UN offices an “international infidels den.” Yet one French language paper Quotidien de Oran stated editorially “There's no point trying to understand what goes on in the sick brain of the zombies of death.”

Another Algerian newspaper El Massa added, “Any criminal act like the one which happened can only be confronted with condemnation and indignation and also with the determination to continue the fight against terrorism with resolve, permanent vigilance and mobilization.”

Secretary General Ban was correct in stating, “Terrorism is terrorism. It is unacceptable…it is a crime against humanity and can never be justified under any circumstances.” This will hardly deter Al-Qaida but should jolt many people from their political rationalizations and comfortable complacency.