Algeria bomb blast kills 43: official

A bomb attack east of Algiers has killed 43 people and wounded 38, the Algerian interior ministry said.

The attack is one of the bloodiest incidents in years in the OPEC member state.

A ministry statement carried by the official APS news agency said the attack targeted a paramilitary gendarmerie training school at Issers, 55 kilometres east of the capital.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

In recent months the mountainous region east of Algiers has seen numerous attacks by Al Qaeda's north Africa wing, which is fighting to set up purist Islamic rule in the north African country, a major oil and gas supplier to Europe.

A suicide car bombing killed at least six civilians in Zemmouri, also east of Algiers, on August 10 in an attack on a coast guard barracks and an adjacent post of the gendarmerie.

The Government said the attack may have been retaliation for an army ambush that killed 12 rebels in mountainous Kabylie region during the night of August 7 to 8.

Newspapers have said that ambush was part of the army's pursuit of rebels who orchestrated a suicide car bombing which wounded 25 people in Tizi Ouzou town east of Algiers on August 3.

That attack was claimed by Al Qaeda's north Africa wing, the Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Saturday's attack.