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Dozens Killed in Terror Attack

Bomb Blasts Rock Algerian Capital

At least 47 people are dead following two explosions in the Algerian capital Algiers. The Supreme Court and UN offices appear to have been the targets in the latest bomb attacks on the North African city.

REUTERS

Rescue personnel carry the body of a bomb blast victim in Algiers.

One blast occured near the Supreme Court in the Ben Aknoun district. An explosion in an area housing UN offices happened around 10 minutes later, according to local radio reports.

The UN Refugee Agency confirmed that its building in the Hydra district of the city had been hit, with some staff injured. Ron Redmond, chief spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said: "There was some damage to the UNHCR building. There were some injuries among staff."

Several of the casualties in Ben Aknoun were reported to be students riding a school bus. No one has claimed responsibility for the suspected car bomb blasts, at least one of which was detonated by a suicide attacker. Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said of the second explosion: "It seems that it was carried out by a suicide bomber."

Violence has escalated in Algeria over the last year, with the country seeing a series of bombings against state targets. In September, a car bomb killed 37 people at a coast guard barracks in the port of Dellys, east of Algiers. A suicide bomb attack before a scheduled visit by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika the same month left 20 dead and 107 wounded in Batna, southeast of the capital.

Algeria is recovering from more than a decade of violence that began in 1992 when the then army-backed government scrapped elections which a radical Islamic party was poised to win. Up to 200,000 people have been killed in the violence since then.

lmc/reuters/ap

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