Algeria bus attack kills 13

ALGIERS, Algeria -- Suspected rebels killed 13 bus passengers and wounded nine others in Algeria's third such attack this month, state-run media reported on Saturday.

Attackers riddled the bus with machine guns on Friday night. It was travelling in Les Eucalyptus district on the southern outskirts of the capital, Algiers, near the airport.

The government-run radio, quoting witnesses, said there were five or six attackers, suspected of being radical Islamists.

The official Algerian news agency APS said the casualty toll was provisional.

Agence France Presse reported that the extremists belonged to the hardline Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which is waging a bloody insurgency against Algeria's secular authorities. The group is known to operate frequently in the area, AFP said.

Twelve bus passengers were killed and nine wounded in a similar attack 17 days ago in Medea, a town about 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of Algiers, Reuters reported.

On Thursday, two suspected rebels shot dead a bus driver and one passenger at the coastal area of Bou Ismail, 40 km west of Algiers.

Friday night's attack brought to more than 600 the number of civilians killed in bombings and other attacks in the last six months, according to official and newspaper reports. The government blames Islamic rebels for the deaths.

Algeria has been torn by violence since early 1992, when the authorities cancelled a parliamentary election that radical Islamists had been poised to win.

More than 100,000 people have been killed since then, the government says. Independent sources estimate deaths at up to 150,000.

Last month Algeria's parliamentary elections, won easily by the ruling party of Prime Minister Ali Benflis, were overshadowed by killings.

Just hours before the polls opened, 23 people were killed in Sendjas village in Chlef province, west of Algiers, the Algerian news agency APS reported.

The massacre was one is a series of killings of civilians and members of government forces.

The poll was the second legislative election since a bloody uprising flared after the cancellation of a parliamentary poll in 1992 in which radical Islamists had taken a commanding lead.

The radical Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), banned in 1992, did not take part in last month's election.