AQIM Bombing in Zemmouri

A small home-made bomb exploded in front of a police station in Zemmouri town about 50 km (30 miles) east of the Algerian capital Algiers on Friday, killing three people and wounding five, residents said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the late afternoon explosion.

Algeria is recovering from more than a decade of violence that began in 1992 when the then army-backed government scrapped legislative elections a radical Islamic party was poised to win. The authorities had feared an Islamic revolution.

Up to 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed.

Al Qaeda said it was behind suicide bombings in Dellys town, east of Algiers, on September 8 and a suicide blast in southeast Batna town on September 6 that killed a total of 57 people.

Algeria's violence had fallen since the 1990s, but in the past 12 months it has regained some of its former intensity, particularly in the mountainous Kabylie region.

Zemmouri, a coastal town, lies on the edge of the Kabylie region, where a hardcore of several hundred al Qaeda linked rebels fight on from remote bases in dense forests.

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