Algeria rebels kill at least seven troops: Papers

Algiers, Nov 11: Algerian rebels have killed at least seven soldiers and wounded 13 others in a clash with government troops, newspapers reported today.

The independent dailies Liberte and El Watan said they believed Wednesday's attack was carried out by the main rebel group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which has consistently rejected peace offers from the government, and announced in September it had joined up with al Qaeda.

All the newspapers said a large-scale military offensive against rebels was going on in Bouira province, some 120 km (75 miles) east of Algiers.

Liberte and El Watan said rebels had killed seven soldiers with home-made bombs while two other papers, Le Soir d'Algerie and El Khabar, put the death toll at 10.

It was the largest reported single loss of government forces since Islamist guerrillas killed eight troops on November. 2 in the Ain Defla region, southwest of Algiers.

The authorities were not immediately available for comment.

Algeria plunged into violence in 1992 when Islamists staged a rebellion after the then military-backed authorities, fearing an Iranian-style revolution, scrapped a parliamentary election that Islamist radicals were set to win.

Up to 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the fighting. The violence has declined sharply in recent years, and the government has freed or amnestied more than 2,000 former Islamist guerrillas.

REUTERS