A pair of assaults rocked a city outside Algeria’s capital on 13th April as Pope Leo XIV began a historic visit to the country, a source with first-hand knowledge of the case said and video images confirmed by the AFP news agency captured. 

The source told AFP on Tuesday that the two “security incidents” in Blida, some 45 kilometres southwest of Algiers, yesterday afternoon were of a terrorist nature.

The bodies were in the street in Blida, as verified on video images by AFP.

The videos came out a few hours after the pope had arrived in Algiers. Not certain of the dates of the movie’s shooting.

The American pope made his first-ever stop in Algeria on Monday, just before taking on four other African countries on a tour.

There has been no connection so far made between the attacks and the pope’s visit, which was made under tight security.

Algeria’s army regularly announces the arrest or deaths of armed Islamists called ‘terrorists’ by the authorities, who are still active despite the North African nation’s civil war (1992-2002).

However, it is rare that attacks or bombings are committed by militants.

The most recent recorded suicide attack in Algeria was in February 2020. It struck a military post and killed a soldier in the south of the nation close to the Malian border, and was allegedly carried out by the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.

The African Union on Tuesday condemned an attempted double attack, before rescinding the comments.

This is because there are no official sources that provide information backing up the statement, AU spokesman Nuur Mohamud Sheekh said.

Algeria’s authorities have not confirmed the attack or commented on the African Union’s statement, which was removed from the African Union’s official website and social media accounts.

In the original AU statement, chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, had stated that he “condemns in the strongest possible terms the double attack that took place on April 13, 2026, in Blida.”

The statement, which was later deleted, read: “He sends his heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, his sympathy and wish for a quick recovery to the injured.”

The army has also claimed it killed seven jihadists while losing three soldiers in a March operation in the eastern part of the country near the Tunisian border.