Bloody Day in Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq and Turkey

There are days like that in the Middle East when violence reels from country to country like a chain reaction of border-hopping bloodlust.

Algeria: 43 Dead, 45 Wounded

It began in Algeria, which cannot seem to go more than a few weeks without suicide bombers' reminders that terrorism there is anybody's concern. A suicide bomber detonated himself outside a police academy some 45 miles east of Algiers, the nation's capital, killing 43 and wounding 45, according to Le Monde, the French daily. Most of the dead were between 18 and 20. Only two days before Islamist insurgents ambushed a convoy of Algerian troops some 200 miles east of Algiers. The clash resulted in 11 deaths. Algeria, which had barely had time to celebrate its first medal at the 2008 Olympics, was reminded instead of its perennial bane. Al-Qaeda's Maghrebi franchise is taking responsibility.

Afghanistan: 10 French Troops Killed in Ambush, 10 Suicide Bombers Attack Americans

The news reports from that one are still sketchy. The Time reports an ambush by 100 insurgents against French troops outside of Kabul, which killed 10 French soldiers. But the story also refers to "a coordinated assault by at least 10 suicide bombers against one of the largest American military bases in the country," without mention of casualties (the suicide bombers aside, obviously).

"Taken together," The Times' Carlotta Gall reports, "the attacks were part of a sharp escalation in fighting as insurgents have seized a window of opportunity to press their campaign this summer — taking advantage of a wavering NATO commitment, an outgoing American administration, a flailing Afghan government and a Pakistani government in deep disarray that has given the militants freer rein across the border.

Iraq: 10 People Killed in 24 Hours

In case you're tempted to buy into the Bush-McCain machinery of opportunistic optimism about Iraq, CNN reminds us today that "Ten people were killed during several attacks targeting coalition troops and Iraqi police in the past 24 hours." It's a continuation of the occasional reality checks that surface from time to time about Iraq, a nation still very much divided, at war and in a political inferno with the Sunni-Shiite divide at its center and the Kurdish north nursing its own powder kegs.

An American soldier was also killed in Iraq today, the 17th American casualty this month, bringing the number of U.S. service member deaths in the Iraq war to 4,144.

Turkey: One Suicide Bomber, Two Deaths

Police stopped a driver 10 miles from Turkey's port city of Mersin on the Mediterranean Sea (not far from the Syrian border). The driver blew himself up, killing two. "The identity of the assailant was not known," Al-Jaeera reports. "Al-Qaeda, Kurdish and leftist fighters have all carried out bomb attacks in Turkey in the past."

The worst of it all, beside the carnage and the its collateral sorrows, is that the day won't rank as a particularly unordinary one for the Middle East. No Olympic truce for this region.