11 soldiers killed, 14 wounded in Algeria attack

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Eleven Algerian soldiers were killed and 14 wounded when they fell into an ambush in the restive Kabylie region east of Algiers, a security sources said Sunday.

One Islamist militant was also killed in the attack, which took place overnight at Iboudrarene as the troops were returning from a mission in the area, the sources said.

The attackers laid the ambush on a main road between two villages in the mountainous region where Islamist militants who battled the army during the civil war in the 1990s still operate.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has also attacked security forces there.

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Last week the army said it killed two “terrorists” near the village of Koukou, in the same area as Iboudrarene.

Sunday’s attack came after ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won a fourth term last week in an election marred by low turnout and allegations of fraud, with his main rival rejecting the result.

Discontent with the 77-year-old Bouteflika is most evident in Kabylie, where some 70 people were wounded in clashes on Thursday between police and youths seeking to disrupt the vote.

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