The bomb went off in Batna prior to a visit by President Bouteflika

The attack happened on Thursday in the town of Batna, about 450km (279 miles) east of the capital, Algiers.

The bomb exploded in a crowd of people awaiting a scheduled visit to the town by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

In April, two bombs killed 23 people in Algiers. A group calling itself Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said it carried out those attacks.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest bombing.

Officials had earlier put the death toll at 15, with more than 75 injured.

Appearing on television soon after the attack, Mr Bouteflika said Islamic militants were behind the attack.

He denounced them as "criminals", trying to disrupt his policy of national reconciliation, which is aimed at ending 15 years of fighting between the army and groups trying to set up an Islamic state.

"Terrorist acts have absolutely nothing in common with the noble values of Islam," the official APS news agency quoted the president as saying.

Mr Bouteflika later visited some of the wounded in a local hospital.

Conflict broke out in Algeria in 1992 after a general election won by an Islamist party was annulled, resulting in a bloody civil war in which more than 150,000 people died.