Bombs explode in Algerian capital; 45 dead
Two explosions rocked the Algerian capital, killing 45 people.
Two explosions rocked the Algerian capital on Tuesday, killing 45 people, authorities said. The civil protection agency said one attack killed 30 people near the Supreme Court, and a second blast left another 15 people dead in a neighborhood where United Nations offices are located. In Geneva, the chief spokesman for the UN refugee agency, Ron Redmond, said he only heard that UN offices were affected by an explosion, "but I don't have any details."
The official Algerian news agency, APS, said some of victims had been riding a school bus. On its website, it gave no details. Public radio, Algiers Network 3, said the two bombs went off about 10 minutes apart, with the first near the Supreme Court. Algerian TV images broadcast in France showed a badly damaged building with many windows blown out.
Over the last year, violence has escalated in Algeria with a series of bombings _ many of them hitherto unheard of suicide attacks against state targets.
Recent bombings have been claimed by Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa. That was the name adopted in January after the remnants of Algeria's Islamic insurgency, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, or GSPC, formally linked with Al-Qaeda.