ALGIERS, Algeria (Dec. 11) - Two car bomb attacks, one of which targeted offices of the U.N. refugee agency, killed at least 45 people in the Algerian capital Tuesday, authorities said.
The civil protection agency said one attack killed 30 people and that a second blast left another 15 people dead.
Ron Redmond, chief spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said that a head count was under way to determine where the agency's staff members were.
"There were some injuries among staff but we don't have details on that," he said.
Redmond told The Associated Press that the explosion happened about 9:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m.) in a street where the offices of the UNHCR and the U.N. Development Program are both located.
"What is suspected to be a car bomb went off in the street," he said.
Public radio, Algiers Network 3, said the two bombs went off about 10 minutes apart. The official news agency APS said some victims of one of the attacks had been riding a school bus.
Algerian TV images broadcast in France showed a badly damaged building with many windows blown out.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for Tuesday's attacks.
Algeria has been battling Islamic insurgents since the early 1990s, when the army canceled the second round of the country's first-ever multiparty elections, stepping in to prevent likely victory by an Islamic fundamentalist party.
Islamist armed groups then turned to force to overthrow the government, with up to 200,000 people killed in the ensuing violence.
The last year has seen a series of bombings against state targets, many of them suicide attacks.
Recent bombings have been claimed by al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa. That was the name adopted in January after the remnants of the insurgency, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, or GSPC, formally linked with al-Qaida.
Once focused on toppling the Algerian government, the group has now turned its sights on international holy war and the fight against Western interests. French counterterrorism officials say it is drawing members from across North Africa.
A Sept. 6 attack during President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's visit to the eastern city of Batna killed 22 people, and a suicide bombing two days later on a coast guard barracks in the town of Dellys left at least 28 dead.
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