An additional 12 people were reported killed Sunday in violence attributed to armed Islamic extremists, the Algerian press said Monday, bringing the day's death toll 26.
Local residents said earlier that 14 people had been killed Sunday, while four were injured and three others kidnapped in attacks by armed groups.
The toll is the heaviest in recent months and comes a year after the troubled country's "civil reconciliation" program was launched.
Several papers said the mayor of Erraguene near Jijel, 300 kilometers east of the capital Algiers, and three local guards were killed in an ambush, which also left the official’s two sons seriously injured.
One soldier was killed and two were injured when a bomb exploded as their convoy passed through the Mizrana forest near Tigzirt, 100 kilometers east of the capital, the daily Le Matin reported.
The paper said two members of the official armed civil defense group also had their throats cut near Tiaret, 340 kilometers southwest of Algiers.
The death toll from a massacre in the village of Whalid Si Hamded in the Tissemsilt region, 220 kilometers southwest of the capital, also rose after four more bodies were found, bringing the total to five dead and three abducted by an armed group, the press said.
A policeman was also reported murdered overnight Saturday in Boudouaou El-Bahri, near Reghaia, 30 kilometers east of Algiers.
Fourteen people were killed, two injured and seven-kidnapped overnight Saturday to Sunday in attacks blamed on Islamist extremist groups near Tipaza, 70 kilometers west of Algiers and in the Tissemsilt area, local residents said.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced last July a six-month amnesty for armed Islamic fighters not implicated in "blood crimes", rape or planting bombs in public places.
But at least 200 people a month have been reported killed in Algeria since the amnesty for the fighters expired on January 13th – ALGIERS (AFP)
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