Three injured in car explosion

2007-11-11 22:15

Tizi Ouzou - Algerian security officials say three people have been injured when a booby-trapped car exploded near a police building in the northern town of Maatkas.

Unknown assailants tried to drive their car toward the police building in Maatkas, just outside the Kabylian city of Tizi Ouzou on Saturday evening, witnesses said in telephone interviews.

The assailants were intercepted before reaching their target, but managed to flee.

Witnesses said the car exploded minutes later, causing serious damage to the building which served as living quarters for unmarried police.

The same evening, one armed Islamist was killed and two others captured in clashes several dozen kilometres away, security officials said.

Islamist attacks and clashes with security personnel are regular events in Algeria, although by no means on the scale witnessed during the country's 1990s civil war in which about 150 000 people were killed.

- AFP