ALGIERS - Thirteen people were killed late Thursday by armed Islamic militants who had mounted a phoney road block near Larbaa, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the capital, security sources told AFP.
The militants ambushed four cars and a van on the main road linking Larbaa to Tablat in Medea region and opened fire, they said.
They then set fire to the vehicles. One person was injured, the sources added.
The ambush came a day after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika gave an address to the nation in which he claimed that security had been "largely reestablished everywhere across the country".
He said this had been made possible by "sacrifices" by the security forces under the leadership of the army.
"Civil peace has been restored in our society thanks to the benefits of civil harmony immediately transformed into national reconciliation," Bouteflika said.
About 50 people, including about 15 security force members, have been killed in violence involving armed Islamist groups since the beginning of last month, according to a toll compiled using official figures and media reports.
Islamic insurgents rose up in arms in 1992 when the army prevented the now-outlawed fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front from taking power by calling off the second round of general elections it was poised to win.
The low-level civil war reached its murderous heights in the 1990s when bomb attacks and massacres of civilians were frequent.
In February, Bouteflika put the official death toll from the Muslim fundamentalist insurgency at 150,000 since 1992, and said it had caused economic losses estimated at 30 billion dollars (22.6 billion euros).
04/08/2005 14:16 GMT