Algeria:The municiple guard will turn to an administrative police

Nour El-Din Zerhouni, the Algerian state minister for internal affairs and local groups, said "the municiple guard units will become an adminstrative police in the future to serve the local groups to apply the law and to solve the daily problems of these groups," referring that the municiple guard will assume special assignments especially in the shadow of restoring internal peace and guaranteeing the adminstration security as well as its development.

The municiple guard forces tackled -- since assuming power in 1994 -- confronting the armed groups members.

Despite of the violence escalation during the current month for the second time since the assumptin of President Abd El-Aziz Bu Taflika to power in April 1999, Zerhouni considered that the security position is improving from one day to the next yet he added that the existance of terrorism groups requires more alertness.