The North African wing of al-Qaeda claimed the two suicide attacks that rocked Algeria in the last days, killing more than 50 people.

The attacks come just months after similar bombings, also claimed by the organisation that calls itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, killed 43 people in April.

On Friday, a suicide bomber detonated his device in a crowd waiting for Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the town of Batna, killing at least 22 people. However, he had to do so before Bouteflika arrived at the spot, having been discovered by the crowd.

The following day, a truck packed with explosives smashed into a coast guard barracks in the town of Dellys, killing at least 30 people.

Algeria has been ravaged by fighting between the military and Islamist guerrillas in the 1990s, killing 200 000 in the process, but clashes had become increasingly rare over the past years, until resurfacing earlier this year.

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