Algeria hit by surge in guerrilla violence

[Al-khiyal]

ALGIERS, Algeria: A police officer and a suspected Islamic militant were killed in clashes in a mountainous region of eastern Algeria, a report said Sunday.

Militants ambush a police station in the remote Skikda region, some 510 kilometers (317 miles) east of the capital, Algiers, on Saturday, Liberte newspaper reported. One officer was killed and four wounded in the attack on the town of Sidi Mansour, Liberte said.

Another attack Saturday on an army unit conducting a routine operation near the town of Oued Zeggar caused no casualties, the report said.

Algeria's security forces dispatched helicopters to find those responsible for the two attacks. One suspected militant was killed and another wounded in the sweep, Liberte said.

Algeria is trying to pull itself out of an Islamic insurgency that started 14 years ago and has killed an estimated 150,000 people: Islamists, civilians and military.

Large-scale fighting died down in the late 1990s, but sporadic violence continues to rattle the oil-rich North African nation.

Report: Police officer, suspected Islamist militant killed in clashes in Algeria

[Al-khiyal]

6 soldiers killed, terrorist arrested

[Al-khiyal]

Algiers - Seven people were killed, five of them soldiers, in separate attacks by terrorist groups in Algeria over a 48-hour period, local media reported on Tuesday.

Four soldiers and a local policeman were killed early on Monday in a mortar attack on a military base at Batna, 435km east of the capital Algiers.

In the ensuing reprisal, Algerian troops killed about 10 members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), a terrorist group associated with al-Qaeda, in a sweeping operation in the region around Batna.

In addition, one Algerian soldier was killed and another injured during a battle with suspected Islamist terrorists at Ain Kechra, some 550 kilometres east of Algiers.

In related news, a former fighter for Algerian independence was found dead at a fake military roadblock erected by Islamic insurgents at Boumerdes, 50 kilometres east of Algiers.

Seven dead in terrorist attacks

[Al-khiyal]

Opération de l’ANP contre un refuge du GSPC à Batna

[Al-khiyal]

15 killed in Algeria violence

[Al-khiyal]

Car bomb blast in Boumerdes

[Al-khiyal]

Fifteen people have been killed in a clash between Islamist militants and Algerian security forces in the eastern region of Batna, local media report. The militants carried out a rocket attack on an army post, killing five soldiers, while 10 Islamists reportedly died in an army counter-attack.

A BBC correspondent in Algeria says this is the most serious Islamist attack for several months.

They are thought to belong to a group now renamed "al-Qaeda in the Maghreb". Earlier this week, the Salafist Group of Preaching and Combat (GSPC) announced that it had changed its name.

This latest clash comes amid repeated calls by the army to the general population to help them in their fight against armed militants.

The army has put up posters across north-central Algeria, urging people to give them any information they had about "terrorists". It is the first time since the start of the violence linked to radical Islamists in 1992 that the army has used this method of gathering information on the militants.

The BBC's Mohammed Arezki Himeur in Algiers says the extensive use of posters by the army contrasts with the government's insistence that armed Islamist groups have been defeated with no chance of resurgence.

Last August, Algeria offered Islamic militants a six-month amnesty on condition of surrender, but fewer than 300 came forward. Militants were promised immunity from prosecution provided they were not involved in serious crimes such as massacres, rapes and bombings.

Islamists battle Algeria's army