afrol News, 5 June - A suicide bomber blew himself up in the Algerian capital, Algiers, seriously maiming a number of innocent people yesterday when he detonated his two bombs near a military barracks.

The bomber was instantly killed while the injured people were hurt in a chain of explosions that followed, after his two bombs went off in a café used by Algerian military personnel.

No group has yet claimed responsibility of the act, though the al-Qaeda group in the Islamic region of Maghreb is highly suspected. It is still not clear whether or not Algerian soldiers were among the injured. Algerian national police are currently investigating the attack.

At least 41 people including 17 United Nations (UN) staff were killed in a similar attack in the Bordj el-Kiffan neighbourhood, last December.

After the devastating incident, the North African wing of al-Qaeda that claims to be behind a series of other bombing attacks in the rest of the country and the entire region said it carried out the hit.

The Algerian government was quick to also point a finger at the El Farouk Brigade, a branch of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which was behind a number of other similar attacks in the region.

Six men were later apprehended in connection with the gory attack. Thereafter, the Algerian Interior Ministry made a confident statement that no similar attacks would be launched again in future.

The ministry was quoted as saying "…with these arrests, all the attacks in the Algiers region have been cleared up."

It further explained that the suspects included a computer expert, three businessmen and a delivery driver, adding that their leader, Abderrahmae Bouzegza was killed by the army in January.

In separate incident later, a double car bombing in the capital targeted at the UN refugee agency and a government complex prompted the UN to investigate security conditions at all its offices throughout the world.

A group calling itself al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQLIM) claimed responsibility of the attack. The group named the UN buildings as "international infidels' den" and called on Western leaders to "heed the demands of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden".

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhaem was however totally opposed to the investigation, arguing that his government had not been consulted on the matter, by the UN.

A lot of people were killed in a series of bomb attacks across the country, during the past year. In September, more than 50 people were killed in suicide attacks - one of them involved a lorry packed with explosives being driven into a coast-guard base.

More than 30 people died in the attack on UN refugee agency office and a court building in Algeria's capital.

Algeria has suffered a brutal and bloody civil war in the 1990s, but in recent years, the aggression has subsided.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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