Algeria says rebel blasts will not derail peace

ALGIERS, Nov 1 (Reuters) Algerian rebel bomb attacks that killed three people will not derail efforts to promote national reconciliation, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said today.

''The latest terrorist attacks are isolated acts and will not have an impact on the process of national reconciliation,'' Zerhouni told state radio in the government's first reaction to Sunday's attacks, the rebels' most elaborate in years.

''The strength of the armed groups has been weakened considerably.'' Three people were killed and 24 wounded in near-simultaneous truck bomb attacks on two police stations in the region of the capital Algiers at midnight on Monday. They were the first bomb attacks on police stations in at least five years.

Clashes between guerrillas trying to set up an Islamic state and security forces normally take place in isolated rural areas.

Commentators said the blasts were almost certainly carried out by the main rebel group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which has refused peace overtures from the government and announced in September it had joined al Qaeda.

Up to 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed in fighting since the revolt broke out in 1992. The violence has subsided sharply in recent years.

Zerhouni noted the terms of a government amnesty for rebels meant those who carried out the latest bombings would not be eligible for immunity from prosecution.

''The individuals who were behind the massacres and those who perpetrated rapes and bombings in public spaces are not included in the amnesty and I think those who perpetrated the latest attacks belong to this category,'' he said.

The six-month amnesty expired at the end of August. But government officials have said that in the interests of stabilising the country, they will offer amnesty to any rebel who disarms provided they have not committed massacres, bombings in public places or rapes.

The amnesty is part of a programme of reconciliation which has also included mass releases from prison of former rebels and compensation payments to the bereaved.

The Islamist revolt began after the then military-backed authorities, fearing an Iran-style revolution, scrapped a parliamentary election that a radical Islamist party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), was set to win.

The FIS remains banned and a state of emergency imposed in 1992 remains in place. Zerhouni repeated the government's position that the FIS would not be allowed to re-enter political life.

REUTERS PDM BST2259