Naciriya, 2 Jan. (AKI) - Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed Wednesday's deadly bomb attack against a police station in the northern town of Niciriya, in Boumerdes province, east of Algiers, Arabic satellite TV network al-Arabiya reported.

A suicide bomber, named as Abdullah, blew himself up in the attack, in which a truck with 500 kilgrammes of TNT explosives, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said, quoted by al-Arabiya.

The bombing killed at least three people and wounded seven, according to the interior ministry. It provided no further details of the attack.

Close to 50 people were killed in militant attacks in Algeria in December, the last of which was in the Boumerdes area on 26 December.

Two police officers were killed and two more injured in a remotely detonated bombing that targeted a road patrol.

A total 41 people were killed and many were wounded in two suicide attacks at the Supreme Court and the office of the UN refugee agency in Algiers.

The attacks were claimed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The terror formation grew out of the local Islamist insurgency movement, the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GPSC).

Up to 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed in Algeria since 1992, when an insurgeny erupted after the army annulled polls a now-banned Islamist party was poised to win.