Algerian ambush toll hits 14
2005-04-09 21:03
Algiers - The death toll from an ambush by armed Islamic militants, who had mounted a phoney road block near Larbaa, about 30km south of Algiers, climbed to 14, Algerian security sources said on Saturday.
The body of a young woman was found on the mountainside near the place where militants ambushed four cars and a van late Thursday and opened fire, they said.
On Friday, security sources reported 13 people were killed and one person was injured.
The ambush came a day after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika gave an address to the nation in which he claimed that security had been "largely re-established everywhere across the country".
Bouteflika, who marked one year since his re-election as head of state on Friday, said civil peace was made possible by "sacrifices" by the security forces under the leadership of the army.
However, this week's ambush showed that the Islamic militants remain a threat to Algeria's peace and stability.
About 50 people, including about 15 security force members, have been killed in violence involving armed Islamist groups since the beginning of last month, according to a toll compiled using official figures and media reports.
The Algerian media have blamed the attacks on the radical Islamic Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which remains dangerous despite the arrest in October last year of the group's second-in-command, Amari Saifi.
The GSPC, which is linked to the Al-Qaeda network led by Osama bin Laden, still has between 300 and 500 men, according to Algerian police chief Ali Tounsi.
Islamic insurgents rose up in arms in 1992 when the army prevented the now-outlawed fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front from taking power by calling off the second round of general elections it was poised to win.
The low-level civil war reached its murderous heights in the 1990s when bomb attacks and massacres of civilians were frequent.
In February, Bouteflika put the official death toll from the Muslim fundamentalist insurgency at 150 000 since 1992, and said it had caused economic losses estimated at $30bn.
- AFP