ALGIERS, Algeria - Car bombs exploded minutes apart Tuesday in central Algiers, heavily damaging U.N. offices and partly ripping the facade off a new government building. The interior minister said 22 were killed, including U.N. workers, but hospital and rescue officials gave figures at least twice that toll.

Suspicions quickly focused on militants affiliated with al-Qaida, which claimed responsibility for attacking the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in 2003..

The bombs exploded around 9:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. EST) and blew off the front off the U.N. refugee agency building, the main U.N. building housing the U.N. Development Program and other agencies across the street, and, in a different neighborhood, Algeria's Constitutional Council.

Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said 22 people were killed and 177 people were wounded.

A national official at the civil protection agency who spoke on condition of anonymity said 45 people were killed. A doctor at one Algiers hospital who said he was in contact with staff at other area hospitals put the death toll at least 60.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon referred to reports that the blasts killed "a number of United Nations staff members."

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported in New York that two UNHCR drivers were killed. Earlier, U.N. officials said 12 U.N. employees were missing.