Bomb Blast in Heart of Algiers Injures 34

A bomb exploded Wednesday in the heart of Algiers, injuring 34 people, five seriously, in the first attack in Algeria’s capital in more than two years, security forces said.

The device, hidden in a plastic bag, went off in a narrow street of the populous lower Casbah district, near a vendor’s stall selling cosmetics and underwear. The stand was blown to bits. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The area where the blast occurred, near the Bab el-Oued neighborhood, was once considered a stronghold of Islamic fundamentalists. It was the site of numerous bombings in the 1990s, when an Islamic insurgency aimed at toppling the military government was at its height. A bombing in August 1998 killed 17 people in the same neighborhood.

More than 100,000 people have been killed since the insurgency started in 1992, after the army canceled elections that a fundamentalist party was likely to win.

Wednesday’s blast raised fears that the violence, now concentrated in western and eastern Algeria, would be reignited in Algiers.

In recent weeks, the Algerian press has reported that the two leading Muslim extremist groups have infiltrated Algiers to carry out attacks aimed at underscoring their refusal to lay down arms.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika launched a program of partial amnesty for insurgents who turned themselves in by Jan. 13, 2000.

While thousands of insurgents are reported to have taken advantage of the amnesty plan, others continue waging the insurgency, which has defied military and political offensives.