The death toll from political violence in Algeria jumped to a year high in April, when suicide bombings killed 33 people in the capital Algiers, according to a Reuters count based on newspapers reports.

An estimated 81 people were killed in the past month including 28 Islamist rebels, compared with a total of 45 killed in March, 18 in February and 21 in January.

The Algiers bombings, the first in the centre of the Mediterranean port city in more than a decade, were believed to be the country?s first suicide bomb attacks.

One of the blasts ripped part of the facade off the Prime Minister?s headquarters, while two others hit a police station and a neighbouring gendarmerie office in the eastern outskirts of the capital.

The attacks were claimed by the Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, a group of Algerian Islamist rebels formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which adopted the new name in January.