There have been a number of suicide bombings in Algeria recently. This is the latest.

IHT: PARIS: A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-filled car into a police academy 60 kilometers east of Algiers early Tuesday, killing at least 43 people - mainly civilians and young recruits who had been waiting to take an entrance exam.

The Algerian Interior Ministry said in a statement that the death toll from the explosion, which took place at 7 a.m., was a "preliminary estimate." An additional 45 people were wounded in the attack carried out in Les Issers district of Boumerdes in northern Algeria, it said.

"What is certain is that it was an attack aimed at hitting a large number of people - they were above all civilians and a number of recruits," said an official at the office of the Algerian president, who declined to be identified but who confirmed the details of the Interior Ministry statement.

"It was in the morning, at the moment when the young recruits were lining up to take an exam," he added.

Of those who died, 42 were civilians and one was a gendarme, the Interior Ministry said. Of the other 45 casualties, 32 were civilians and 13 were gendarmes, the ministry said in comments relayed by the Algerian Press Service.

"It's a bloodbath," a security official at the school told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

No one immediately took responsibility for the bombing, which follows a series of deadly explosions in the country carried out by the North African wing of Al Qaeda...