3 die in Algeria violence - reports

2003-09-20 13:22

Algiers - Two Islamic militant fighters were killed by Algerian troops and a repented former Islamist was murdered by suspected extremists in fighting last week, media reported on Saturday.

Algeria's decade-long civil war, which has pitted government forces against armed groups seeking to create an Islamic state in the north African country, has claimed at least 17 lives this month, according to an AFP tally based on official and press reports.

In the latest wave of violence, an Islamic militant was killed on Thursday near Skikda, some 500 kilometres east of the capital Algiers. Three members of the local guards were also injured in the clashes.

Algerian security fources killed another Islamic fighter, also on Thursday, near the Kabylie town of Tizi Ouzou, 110 kilometres east of the capital.

Newspapers also reported the assassination by armed extremists of a man who had repented his former Islamist beliefs, in the village of Omar, near Bordj Menaiel in the Boumerdes region, 50 kilometres east of Algiers.

The death toll due to fighting largely between the government and the two main Islamist groups - the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and its rival, the Islamic Armed Group (GIA) - has dropped to the relatively low average of 80 per month since July.

Nine soldiers were also reported killed on Wednesday in an ambush laid by Islamic militants at Oued Djemaa in the Ain Defla regionn, 140 kilometres west of Algiers.

But civilians are still largely the targets in a bloody, drawn-out conflict that has killed 700 since the beginning of the year and an estimated 150 000 since 1992.

- AFP