TWO powerful car bombs killed at least seven people in Algiers yesterday, hours after Islamic extremists threatened more massacres in the wake of a bloody weekend that left nearly 100 dead.
The first blast ripped through a crowded street as a bus passed a booby-trapped car during the afternoon rush-hour period, killing at least six people.
Earlier, the El Watan newspaper claimed 49 worshippers had been slaughtered at the weekend when suspected Islamist rebels broke into a mosque in northern Algeria. Quoting witnesses, the paper said the gunmen hacked to death the 49 men with axes and swords on Saturday night in Sidi Abdelaziz village in Medea province. There was no independent confirmation of the report.
The newspaper did not explain why fundamentalist Muslim rebels would kill Muslims at prayer but El Watan said the mosque had been targeted because its preacher was appointed by the government.
The Algerian security services first put the car bombs toll at five dead and several wounded, but witnesses said the blast had killed at least 16 people riding on the bus and injured more than 40 others.
State television later put the death toll at six.
Hours later a second blast, which went off near the Monument to the Martyrs, which dominates the city, killed at least one person and injured 10, security services said.
The first blast, which was heard throughout the city and sent up a plume of black smoke, occurred at 4.45 p.m. local time on the Boulevard of the Martyrs at a time when it was guaranteed to be packed with people.
Security forces immediately cordoned off the area.
Scenes of panic erupted as the second car bomb went off near a children's amusement park, eyewitness said.
Ambulances arrived with their sirens wailing. Residents of buildings nearby rushed into the street, fearing for the lives of their children playing in the vicinity. A thick cloud of smoke spread around the amusement park, although the blast went off in a nearby car park.
At least seven vehicles were destroyed by the force of the blast, which happened at around 9 p.m.
The latest violence came hours after the Armed Islamic Group, the most extreme of the terror groups fighting the military-backed government, warned of more carnage in a text published by the El Watan newspaper yesterday.
"The war will continue and will intensify during the (Islamic holy) month of Ramadan and we have the means and the men to punish those who are not on our side," the head of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Antar Zouabri, wrote in the text.
The warning followed a weekend of savage violence in Algeria that left nearly 100 people dead, including 42 killed by a car bomb in the centre of the capital, according to unofficial tolls.
The weekend, one of the bloodiest since fundamentalists took up arms against the regime five years ago, also witnessed an attack on a village in the Beni-Slimane region south of Algiers in which security forces said 36 people were knifed to death.
France responded yesterday to the weekend's violence, saying it was concerned and shocked" by the attacks that targeted the Algerian population in a "blind and savage way".