Ten soldiers killed in the southern part of Algeria

A handmade bomb went off on Wednesday near a military monitoring position in Medea city, 80 km south of Algiers, resulting in killing ten soldiers, according to the Algerian daily "Le Matin."

Following the blast the Algerian army installed several monitoring points in the hills surrounding Medea so as to be able to monitor the moves of the armed Islamic groups which are active in that area. On Saturday, three municipality guards were killed and another eight wounded in the area in an attack carried out by an armed group.

Since the beginning of November some 200 persons were killed in a new wave of violence, carried out by the armed groups which reject the civil concord law.