Homemade bomb kills two Algeria soldiers, wounds four: Security

Algiers: A homemade bomb killed two Algerian soldiers and wounded four others in the Bir el-Ater area near the Tunisian border on Saturday, a security source said.

The troops were patrolling the area, around 600 kilometres southeast of Algiers and 20 kilometres from the frontier, when the device exploded, the source said.
Another security source said the soldiers were combing the semi-desert area between Bir al-Ater and Negrine.

Authorities did not immediately provide an official confirmation of the blast or the toll.

Algerians had hoped that a 2005 peace and reconciliation charter would turn the page on a 1991-2002 civil war that cost 200,000 lives.

But Islamist groups remain active in the south and east, largely targeting security forces.