Suspected al Qaeda car bombs kill 67 in Algiers

By Lamine Chikhi

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Suspected Al Qaeda militants detonated twin car bombs in the Algerian capital on Tuesday, killing up to 67 people in the bloodiest attack in the North African country since an undeclared civil war in the 1990s.

The United Nations said at least five of its employees were feared to have been killed when one blast destroyed the offices of the U.N. Development Program and severely damaged the offices of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

"I have no doubt that the U.N. was targeted," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, told BBC television. The United Nations has a low profile in Algeria.

Algerian Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni accused the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) of being behind the attacks in Algiers, using the former name of Al Qaeda's North African wing.

"We are sure that the GSPC is behind it," Zerhouni told a news conference, adding the death toll at 10 a.m. EST stood at 22. A Health Ministry source said 67 people were killed in the attacks in affluent districts of Algiers.

Al Qaeda's North African wing claimed responsibility for a similar bombing in Algiers in April and other blasts east of the capital this year that have worried foreign investors in the OPEC member state.

The White House, concerned by Islamist militancy in North Africa, described the attackers as "enemies of humanity".

One of Tuesday's blasts occurred near the Constitutional Court building in the Ben Aknoun district and the other was near the U.N. offices and a police station in the Hydra area. Several Western companies have offices in the two areas.

The interior minister said a suicide attacker appeared to have detonated the Hydra car bomb.

Students traveling in a school bus were among the casualties in Ben Aknoun, the official APS news agency said.

In Ben Aknoun, people ran through the streets crying in panic and the wail of police sirens filled the air.

A body lay on the road covered with a white blanket, two buses were burning, debris from damaged cars was strewn across pavements while police struggled to hold back onlookers.

"I want to call my family, but it is impossible. The network is jammed," said a veiled woman working in a perfume shop.

"MASSIVE BLAST"

"There was a massive blast. Everything shattered. Everything fell," a U.N. worker, who declined to give his name, wrote on a BBC Web site.