ALGIERS (AFP) – Sixty-two people were killed and scores injured in two bomb attacks in Algiers on Tuesday, according to a new toll given by hospital sources.
One of the sources estimated the number of injured at more than 100, including some who were in critical condition.
One explosion targetted the offices of the UN refugee agency in Algiers, while the other bomb was triggered near the Algerian Supreme Court building.
Ten UN staff, all Algerians, were among the dead, a senior UN official said.
All were in the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and neighbouring UN Development Programme when the bomb went off, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In Geneva, UNDP deputy director Jean Fabre told reporters that 12 UN employees were missing.
Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said a suicide bomber was used in at least one of the two attacks — the latest in a series this year which have mostly been claimed by Al-Qaeda.
“The death toll is very high,” Zerhouni told reporters.
Those killed included a number of university students, riding in a bus that took the full force of the explosion outside the Supreme Court.
The local Al-Qaeda's branch just claimed responsibility…
http://www.afp.fr/english/news/stories/071211223800.1ail8wfc.html
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Al-Qaeda's Branch in the Islamic Maghreb (BAQMI) claimed responsibility for the bombs in a statement published on an Islamist website, the authenticity of which could not be immediately confirmed.
"We are announcing the good news to the Muslim nation," the statement said alongside photographs of the two suicide bombers, named as Abdel Rahmane al-Assmi and Ammi Ibrahim Abou Othmane, carrying assault rifles.
It hailed "the success of the two martyr operations carried out by… two heros in Algiers to defend the nation of Islam and to humiliate the crusaders and their agents, the slaves of the United States and the sons of France."
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