Al Qaeda-linked group claims Algeria attack

DUBAI, July 11 (Reuters) Al Qaeda's north Africa wing said it was behind a suicide bombing on Algerian military barracks that killed about nine people today, Al Jazeera television reported.

''Our martyr was able to enter into the heart of the (barracks) and set off the explosion there,'' said a spokesman of al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb in an audio tape aired by the television.

The spokesman named the suicide attacker as Suhail Abu Malih and said more than one tonne (2,200 lb) of explosives were used in the attack in a region east of the capital Algiers. It gave no further details.

Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC, has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks.

Conflict broke out in the oil- and gas- exporting country in 1992 after military-backed authorities scrapped parliamentary elections that an Islamist party was set to win. Up to 200,000 people have been killed in the bloodshed.

REUTERS SBC PM2310