By Lamine Chikhi
ALGIERS (Reuters) - A car rammed into a police station in Algeria on Wednesday and exploded, killing four policemen and injuring 20 people, state radio said.
Al Qaeda's north African wing said the Toyota laden with at least 500 kg (1100 lbs) of explosives was driven by one of its members, according to a recorded statement aired by Al Arabiya television.
The blast left a crater three meters (three yards) wide, wrecked the outside of the building and damaged nearby homes, shops and a cafe in the town of Naciria, about 120 km (75 miles) east of Algiers, witnesses said.
"This morning at 7 a.m. one of the lions of the al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, martyrdom-seeker Abdullah, ... drove (his car) into the judicial police quarters," a man told the Arabic TV news station.
He identified himself as Salah Abou Mohammad, a spokesman for the group.
An earlier Interior Ministry statement did not specify whether it was a suicide car bomb.
"We heard the loud thump of the blast at 7.15 a.m. (0615 GMT)," said one resident, who did not want to be named.
"A Toyota car was used in the bombing which killed four policemen and injured 20 people," state radio said. Continued...
A map of Algeria, where the bombing took place.
A police station has been hit by a bomb in , which is in the northern part of Algeria and is about 50 km east of the Algerian capital Algiers.

According to reports, at least 4 people are dead and several are injured. Full details have not yet been released. The bomb went off at about 0600 UTC (7 AM local time) today.

It is currently not clear whether the bombing was caused by a  or a .

The bombing, although less serious than the  which killed 40 people, is likely to raise suspicions that violence has not ended in Algeria. It is the first bombing to hit Algeria since the bombings in early December.

The bombing was announced in a statement by a spokesman for the Algerian Interior Ministry in which the following was said - "There has been an attack with explosives near a police station in Naciria. The attack left three dead and seven wounded." 

Frequent terrorism first hit Algeria after measures were carried out by the government to stop a  party winning the elections. That party has now been banned. 

A witness of the event said that the majority of injuries hit police officers and not the general public.