ALGIERS (AFP) -- The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (SGPC) on Tuesday claimed an anti-U.S. bombing attack that left one dead and nine wounded, including eight foreigners, at Bouchaoui west of Algiers on Sunday.

An Algerian driver was killed and nine people from Algeria, Britain, Canada, Lebanon and the United States were injured in the attack on buses carrying workers from a company linked to U.S. construction giant Halliburton, the interior ministry said. In a statement put on the main Islamist website, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, the SGPC said: "The mujahedin Sunday carried out a bomb attack on a bus carrying at least 20 crusaders, which caused an undetermined number of dead and wounded, before returning safe and sound to their bases."

The operation, called "Conquest of Bouchaoui", was "a modest present to all our mujahedin brothers who are subjected to the pangs of the new crusade against Islam," the statement said. The group also called on Algerian Muslims to "stay away from the interests of the infidels to avoid being hit during attacks against the crusaders."

Staff from the American construction company Brown Root and Condor were returning to their hotel on the Algerian coast when they were hit by a homemade bomb west of Algiers, the ministry reported.

The official statement said that one American, four Britons, two Lebanese, a Canadian and an Algerian were injured.

A statement from the Foreign Office in London, however, gave a lower British casualty toll.

The SGPC affiliated itself with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror group in September. The move was officially announced on September 11 by Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri.