Algeria gunmen kidnap Egyptian engineer--source

ALGIERS, May 29 (Reuters) Gunmen posing as police kidnapped an Egyptian engineer in Algeria's politically unstable Kabylie region, a security source said today.

Three armed men wearing police uniforms seized the 26-year-old near his home in the Thla Alam district near Tizi Ouzou town 100 km east of Algiers late on Sunday evening, the source said without elaborating.

An official at the Egyptian embassy said a spokesman for the mission was not immediately available.

Kidnappings of Algerians including children are common in the Tizi Ouzou area and police say they are normally carried out by criminal gangs or by Islamist rebels for ransom.

Kidnappings of foreigners are rare. Few foreigners are based in mountainous Kabylie because of its poor security.

Several hundred Islamist guerrillas remain at large in and around the region due to criminal and family links and the protection offered by remote terrain.

The region is also a bastion of Algeria's Berber speakers, who have long had a tense relationship with the authorities, protesting at what they see as discrimination by the Arab majority.

Oil exporter Algeria plunged into conflict in early 1992 after the then military-backed authorities scrapped a parliamentary election that radical Islamists were set to win.

The violence cost up to 200,000 lives and 20 billion dollars in economic losses due to a sabotage campaign by Islamic rebels.

REUTERS NC HT1620