Click to play videoNew Delhi: An al-Qaeda wing has claimed responsibility for two blasts that killed at least 30 people in Algeria's capital on Wednesday.
One of the bombs exploded near the Prime Minister's office. Another explosion hit a police station in the eastern outskirts of Algiers.
Unharmed by the blast, Algerian Prime Minister Abdel-aziz Bel-khadem called the attacks a "cowardly and criminal act".
The al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, earlier known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, has claimed responsibility for the bombings.
It has carried out several such attacks in Algeria since January.
The attacks were a devastating setback for the North African nation's efforts to close the chapter on its Islamic insurgency that has killed 200,000 people.
After years of relative calm, the al-Qaeda affiliate recently has recently waged several smaller attacks in the oil and gas-rich nation.
On Tuesday in neighboring Morocco, police surrounded a building in Casablanca where four terrorism suspects were holed up, causing three to flee and blow themselves up with explosives.
The fourth was shot dead by the police as he tried to detonate his bomb.
Since five suicide bombings that killed 45 people in Morocco in May 2003, police have pursued an unprecedented crackdown on suspected militants, arresting thousands of people, including some accused of working with al-Qaeda and its affiliates to plot attacks in Morocco and abroad.
Algeria's insurgency broke out in 1992, after the army canceled legislative elections that an Islamic party appeared set to win.
Since then, violence related to the insurgency has left an estimated 200,000 dead - civilians, soldiers and Islamic fighters - according to the government.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
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