Twin car bombings in Algeria

2008-08-20 10:16

Algiers - Twin car bombings rocked a hotel and military headquarters in the Algerian town of Bouira on Wednesday, a day after a suicide bombing in a neighbouring region killed 43 people, witnesses said.

A car laden with explosives went off at about 06:00 (04:00GMT) in front of the Bouira sector military command. It was followed a minute later by a second bombing against the nearby Hotel Sofi, Bouira's largest, witnesses said.

It was not immediately clear whether the bombings were suicide attacks or if the two cars blew up by remote control. There was no immediate official comment on the attacks.

The military barracks were most damaged. "Parts of the walls have fallen-off, the fence is destroyed, cars are buried under the rubble," said Abdellah Debbache, the Bouira correspondent of Algeria's Liberte newspaper.

Witnesses said several people had been brought to the hospital.

The blasts appeared to be quite powerful, and an AP reporter in the area heard them from several kilometres away.

Bouira is located about 90km southeast of Algiers in the Bouira province.

About 45km to the north, in the adjacent Boumerdes province, a suicide bomber on Tuesday rammed a car into a line of applicants at a police academy in the town of Les Issers, killing at least 43 people and injuring 45. That was the deadliest single attack in Algeria since the 1990s.

No group has claimed responsibility for either attack. An al-Qaeda affiliate has organised a series of bombings over the past two years in this North African country that has important oil and natural gas fields.

Violence has dramatically increased since 2006, when Algeria's last big extremist group left over from a quieted insurgency in the 1990s renamed itself al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa and joined Osama bin Laden's network.

The insurgency broke out in 1992 when the army cancelled the second round of legislative elections that an Islamist party was expected to win.

- AP