A car bomb killed eight people and wounded 25 when it exploded outside a restaurant in El Biar, on the heights of Algiers, ending a two-week lull in serious attacks and bloodshed in the city. Boys selling cigarettes, women heading home, customers in the restaurant and occupants of passing cars were caught by the explosion, Le Matin reported.
The last big bomb in Algiers exploded in a market on July 14th, killing at least 21 people and wounding about 40. Since then the violence has focused outside the capital.
In the past week, 170 people were slaughtered in villages and isolated communities in rebel attacks that Algerian papers said were revenge for 300 rebel deaths in a military offensive against a mountain hideout earlier last month.
Wednesday night's blast ripped along pavements thronged with people escaping their often overcrowded apartments in the popular working class district or simply out for the evening.
Algerian security forces, who blamed Muslim fundamentalists for the blast, gave an initial toll of three dead and 25 wounded, just after the bomb exploded at 7.40 p.m.
"At the [hospital] emergency department were a dozen wounded who miraculously escaped death. Some were in a serious state and going to have surgery, including amputation of arms and/or legs," said Liberte newspaper.
From l'Universal restaurant on Boulevard Bougara, windows were shattered for a distance of some 400 metres. The shells of three burnt-out cars lay nearby. The occupants of a passing Renault were caught with its full force, said El Watan.
The bomb exploded nearly three hours after a policeman and a civilian were killed and two police wounded, in an attack on a police patrol in La Glaciere area, Le Matin said.
The return of violence to the capital, where tough measures had been announced to try to thwart car bombs, such as a parking ban on busy roads - including Boulevard Bougara before 7 p.m. - coincided with President Liamine Zeroual swearing in a team to oversee local elections in October.
Mr Zeroual promised free and fair local elections would be held to cement democracy and bring back stability.
A court, just hours before Wednesday's bomb, sentenced six journalists to suspended prison terms for a report carried in El Watan newspaper in January 1993. Omar Belhouchet, director of El Watan, and Nacera Benali who wrote the report, were each sentenced to six months and four other journalists each to four months - all suspended.
The newspaper had reported that an armed group cut the throats of five gendarmes in Ksar El Hirane, some 350 km south of Algiers. Belhouchet and the others were charged with "premature publication" and other offences, including threatening state security.
About 60,000 people have been killed since early 1992 when authorities cancelled a general election in which radical Islamists had taken a lead. A fresh general election was held last June, without any reduction in violence.
Le Matin, commenting on the latest violence, said: "The beast is wounded. And it can go still further in its murderous folly."