DOZENS KILLED IN ALGERIA BOMBINGS !

There are fears people are trapped in the debris.
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At least 62 people have died in two bomb blasts in the Algerian capital, Algiers, officials have said. The first explosion happened in the Ben Aknoun district, near the supreme constitutional court. That was followed shortly afterwards by a second blast at the United Nations offices in the Hydra neighbourhood. A UN worker caught up in the Hydra attack told the BBC that a large part of the building was destroyed and it was feared people were trapped inside.

Map showing bomb blast locations

Dozens were wounded in the explosions, officials said. In the attack near the court, a bus packed with university students was passing by the vehicle containing the bomb when it exploded.

Witness: 'Everything fell'
In pictures: Algiers blasts

Security officials said the bus took the full force of the blast and was ripped apart, killing and injuring many of those on board. At the UN offices in Hydra, it was the UNDP building which bore the brunt of the blast. A residential building and the UNHCR headquarters across the road were also damaged, witnesses said.

Sophie Haspeslagh, who works for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told the BBC that she was in a corridor when the blast occurred. "Everything shattered. Everything fell. I hid under a piece of furniture so I wouldn't be hit by the debris," she said. "I was holding my jacket on my face because I couldn't breathe."

Algerian Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said the explosions had been caused by two car bombs, and that the one at the UN was triggered by a suicide bomber. A bus full of university students was ripped apart in the court bombingMs Haspeslagh said that one of her colleagues, who works in the UNHCR building across the street from the UNDP office, had seen a white van drive into the main UN offices, then explode.

There has been no immediate claim of responsibility. Throughout 2007 there have been a series of bomb attacks across Algeria in which scores of people have died. In September more than 50 people were killed in suicide attacks - one of them involved a truck packed with explosives being driven into a coast-guard base.

Al-Qaeda link?
Members of the public have recently held rallies in protest at the upsurge in violence.

VIOLENCE IN 2007

6 September: 22 die bombing in Batna claimed by al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb
8 September: 32 die in bombing in Dellys claimed by al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb
July: Suicide bomber targets barracks near Bouira killing nine
May: Dozens killed in run-up to elections, in fighting between military and militants
April: 33 killed in Algiers in attacks claimed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
March: Three Algerians and a Russian killed in attack on gas pipeline workers
February: Seven bombs kill six east of Algiers

Many of the recent blasts have been claimed by members of al-Qaeda's North Africa wing, calling themselves al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, including a triple suicide in Algiers in April which killed 33 people. The militant group was previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) but changed its name when it joined forces with al-Qaeda last year.

The BBC's regional analyst Roger Hardy says it is unclear how far the group really is linked to Osama Bin Laden's organisation and how far it is merely inspired by it. What is worrying Western experts and North African governments is the possibility that radical Islamists in the region no longer have a merely local agenda but are linked to a wider web of international networks.

Algeria suffered a brutal and bloody civil war in the 1990s, but in recent years violence had declined.

BBC NEWS REPORT.