Islamic Group Gets Blame For Truck Bomb In Algiers Four Killed, 80 Hurt As Attempt To Rock Government Continues

A truck bomb killed four people and injured at least 80 and gunmen murdered another foreigner Saturday as Muslim fundamentalist insurgents sought to derail planned presidential elections.

Extremists also threatened public employees who don’t quit before Sept. 15, and a leader of the banned Islamic Salvation Front was quoted as saying the Nov. 16 vote “will only aggravate the crisis.”

The explosives, loaded in a parked truck, went off near a police station in Meftah, a poor southeast Algiers suburb. Officials confirmed four people were killed, including a 9-year-old girl.

The blast destroyed about 30 homes and was heard up to 12 miles away, witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion fell on the Armed Islamic Group, which is waging a campaign of violence to replace the military-backed regime with Islamic rule.

The blast is the latest in a wave of bombings that began in July after the government announced that talks had collapsed with leaders of the Islamic Salvation Front, the party that was banned after the government canceled January 1992 elections the Front was expected to win.

The Front has condemned terror attacks but has supported the insurgency that has left 30,000 dead.

In Canastel, a resort near the western city of Oran, gunmen killed Angelo Gavezzolli, 53, an Italian employee of an Algerian sock manufacturer, security forces said in a statement.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the Armed Islamic Group, in seeking to undermine the government, has repeatedly threatened foreigners.

It accuses foreign governments of propping up the army-controlled regime, which it deems illegitimate.