A BOMB wounded two girls attending classes yesterday at a study centre at Bourouba, in the Algiers suburb of El Harrach, an eyewitness said.
"Two young girls were wounded, but no one was killed," the witness said, adding that the explosion occurred at 7.55 a.m.
The blast came just hours after the bodies of seven young Algerians, found in a "terror zone", had been taken to the hospital morgue in Saida, about 350 km south west of Algiers, according to a report in the newspaper, El Watan.
Their killings were the latest in a series of attacks. Last week about 160 people died in four days of bloodshed blamed on Muslim fundamentalists.
El Watan said the bodies were found in an area "known as being a zone targeted by terrorists".
The newspaper, normally well informed on security matters, said most of the seven were young shepherds. They were killed near Moulay El-Arbi, a community bordering Saida and Sidi Bel-Abbes provinces.
Residents said yesterday's explosion, at a professional training centre, could be heard several kilometres away. It was the second bomb within days. Last Friday a bomb on a railway line in Algiers killed at least 21 people and wounded 20.
Algeria was rocked earlier this year by a series of bombs which the authorities attributed to Muslim fundamentalists who have been trying to topple the government for more than five years.
Violence erupted after the authorities in January 1992 cancelled a general election in which the Islamic Salvation Front had taken a commanding lead. About 60,000 people have died since.
The North African country is now heading towards its first parliamentary elections since then, and some diplomatic sources link the increased violence to rebel attempts to disrupt them.
On Monday, the Algerian Prime Minister, Mr Ahmed Ouyahia, told a news conference. "The authorities will step up security measures to ensure the forthcoming ballot (on June 5th) is held in a peaceful atmosphere."
On Monday, El Watan reported that rebels, attempting to attack several villages at the weekend in Blida province, had been driven off by alert villagers. Blida was the scene last week of the worst massacre in five years of violence when 93 people were slaughtered.
El Watan said that in Berrouaghia, residents of a hamlet alerted by a warning shot used steel bars, old hunting rifles, and even cooking implements to drive off a "terrorist group.
In an isolated hamlet near Ain Defla, would be attackers left after being surprised by the scream of sirens installed by inhabitants.
El Watan said that in Ouled Yaich, about 10 km from Blida, rebels looted shops near an estate of apartment blocks known as Cite des 1024 Apartments. "The metal gates saved us. They tried to force them but couldn't," it quoted one resident as saying. "A lot of the residents fled their homes the next morning."