ALGIERS, Algeria — A suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives into a line of applicants at an Algerian police academy Tuesday, killing at least 43 people in the deadliest terrorist attack to jolt this energy-rich U.S. ally since the 1990s.
Witnesses said the blast in the town of Les Issers, 35 miles east of Algiers, tore a 3-foot-deep crater in the road, ripped off parts of the police academy’s roof and damaged much of its facade and nearby buildings.
Bodies covered with multicolored blankets lay amid rubble on the ground. The carcass of a charred car was on its side, its doors blown outward. Singed clothes were piled on a curb.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but an al-Qaeda affiliate previously said it was behind a series of bombings over the past two years in this North African country that has important oil and natural-gas fields.
Violence has increased sharply since 2006, when Algeria’s last big extremist group left over from a quieted insurgency in the 1990s renamed itself Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa and joined Osama bin Laden’s network.
Suicide attacks were unheard of in Algeria before the group linked up with al-Qaeda.
Algeria’s insurgency broke out in 1992 after the army canceled the second round of legislative elections that an Islamist party was expected to win. The ensuing conflict killed up to 200,000 people, with massacres blamed on both sides.
Khadija Mohsen-Finan, head of the North Africa program at the French think tank IFRI, said militants are now careful to avoid hitting civilians because they need popular support.
“For extremists to target police is like hitting a symbol of repression. It can help them rally a segment of the population,” she said.
Officials said Tuesday’s bombing killed at least 43 people and wounded 45.
