Algiers - At least 29 people have died and more than 80 were injured in floods in the souther

Algi

Algiers  - Algerian security forces have prevented a suicide attack on the presidential palace, local press reports said on Thursday.

Fourteen suspected terrorists have been arrested, according to the Algerian el-Khabar daily.

Among the detained are believed to be the individual responsible for planning the attack, as well as the suspected would-be suicide bomber, a 60-year-old male who owned a luxury villa some 200 metres from the presidential palace.

In separate developments, on Wednesday evening police in the coastal city of Annaba, near the border with Tunisia, sealed off the town centre fearing an explosion. Eyewitnesses reported seeing two vehicles loaded with explosives.

Cairo  - The North African wing of the al-Qaeda terrorist network claimed responsibility for two car bombings in Algeria this week that killed 12 people, the al-Jazeera television network reported.

In an audio recording, a spokesman claimed Wednesday's bombings in Bouira, about 100 kilometres south-east of the capital, Algiers, were carried out by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the news network said late Thursday.

The two car bombs detonated in the city centre. In one attack, a suicide bomber drove his car into a military administration office in Bouira. In the second bombing, a suicide attacker drove his car toward a hotel but at the last moment diverted it to smash into a bus before exploding.

Algiers/Paris - In the latest of a series of terror bombings, twin blasts on Wednesday claimed at least 11 lives in the city of Bouira, the Algerian Interior Ministry and local authorities reported.

In one attack, a suicide bomber drove his car into a military administration office in Bouira, 120 kilometres east of Algiers.

In the second bombing, a suicide attacker drove his car towards a hotel, but at the last moment diverted it to smash into a bus before exploding.

Combined, the two attacks killed 11 and wounded at least 31 persons, among them 27 civilians and four military personnel.

The attack comes a day after 43 people were killed and 45 wounded in a suicide car bombing in Issers, 60 kilometres east of Algiers.

Algier/Paris - In total 12 people, among them 11 military and one civilian, were killed when suspected Islamist terrorists attacked a military convoy near the coastal town of Skikda, 350 kilometres East of Algier, French radio reported Tuesday.

Ten further military personnel were injured in the blast which already took place last Sunday, the report said. Four of the attackers were killed in the firefight following the bombing.

No organization had yet claimed to be behind the attack.

The blast was the most serious in the region which has seen repeated attacks by extremists in recent months, including three suicide bombings, in which 7 people were killed and 57 injured.