A homemade bomb blast killed two police officers at a beach resort in eastern Algeria, one of several violent events in the insurgency-ridden country that left a total of five dead, news reports said on Sunday.
The explosion on Friday at the coastal resort near Skikda, about 500 kilometres east of Algiers, also left six injured, the Arab language daily El Khabar reported. Witnesses attributed the bomb attack to an unidentified group of 20 people, the report said.
Meanwhile, Algerian soldiers shot and killed two armed Islamic militants in Relizane, about 300 kilometres east of the capital, news reports said, citing a communique by regional military officials.
The militants, killed in an ambush by the armed forces, were allegedly responsible for the assassination of an army commander last week, the reports said.
Also on Friday, government forces killed an armed Islamic militant near Tizi-Ouzou, about 100 kilometres east of Algiers and home to the country’s ethnic Berber minority, the reports said.
Algeria’s army has been hunting down insurgents responsible for a decade-long campaign of violence against civilians and security forces. The insurgency, an effort to topple the military-backed government, has left more than 120,000 people dead.
The insurgency was triggered after the army cancelled 1992 legislative elections because a Muslim fundamentalist party appeared headed toward victory. – Sapa-AP