Algeria Cracks Down, Targets Islamic Front : Upheaval: The government declares a state of emergency. Fundamentalist party may be banned.

After a weekend of worsening violence that has left up to 40 people dead, Algeria’s military-backed government Sunday declared a 12-month state of emergency and moved to ban the Islamic fundamentalist political party.

The steps appeared designed to head off massive public demonstrations threatened by the 3-year-old Islamic Salvation Front, which has demanded the release of its leaders from prison and resumption of the electoral process under which it was poised to gain control of the National Assembly last month.

Security forces earlier in the day seized the headquarters of the Islamic Front in downtown Algiers and arrested at least three top fundamentalist leaders not already in detention, including Abdelkadar Moghni, the popular imam of the Al Sunna Mosque in the crowded Algiers district of Bab al Oued.

The five-member High Committee of State, which took power in January after the army forced the resignation of President Chadli Bendjedid, said it filed a complaint to ban the Islamic Front because of “subversive actions . . . that seriously threaten public order and the state’s institutions.”

Earlier in the day, fundamentalist protesters set up barricades of tires, cement and stone near the main mosque in the city of Batna, south of Algiers, prompting police to respond with tear gas and rifles. In Kouba, a fundamentalist stronghold in the Algerian capital, protesters set up roadblocks and prevented police cars and luxury vehicles from entering, setting fire to several automobiles.

The badly fractured front, whose top leaders have been in prison since June, predicted in its last communique before the government announcement that the confrontation would continue.

“The crisis will continue as long as the junta in power perseveres in its policy of arrogance and repression against its political adversaries,” the front said. “The junta in power again confronts the will of the people with its infernal apparatus of repression, drowning the country in blood, tears and grief.”

The fundamentalists called for soldiers to disobey orders to shoot protesters and again announced a massive public march on Friday to protest the detention of Islamic leaders.

A previously unknown group calling itself the Faithful to the Promise declared a jihad, or holy war, “in continuation of that of November 1954,” referring to Algeria’s war of independence from France. It concluded with two verses from the Koran justifying battle against those who commit injustices.

The latest moves followed a weekend of the worst violence yet since army leaders on Jan. 11 forced Bendjedid to resign and canceled the second round of national elections which almost certainly would have guaranteed the fundamentalists control of the government and freedom to declare an Islamic state in Algeria.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in the eastern city of Constantine on Sunday, chanting that they were ready to die for the Islamic Salvation Front, following the burial of a young man killed during a confrontation last week with security forces.

Up to 40 people have been killed and as many as 300 injured in clashes between Islamic protesters and the authorities throughout the country since Friday, according to medical reports from the Algerian capital.

Algerian Radio has reported a total of 30 dead and 200 wounded.

The worst clashes have been in the city of Batna, about 270 miles south of Algiers, where 14 people have been killed and 67 others wounded in confrontations with security forces that began on Tuesday. Most of those injured have been between the ages of 17 and 20, hospital officials told the French news agency, Agence France-Presse.

Police helicopters have been circling the city of 200,000 and army troops have been deployed in the city center since riots broke out protesting the arrest of one of the city’s most popular religious leaders.

Elsewhere in the country, two courthouses have been set afire over the last several days, and fundamentalists have been erecting makeshift roadblocks in several districts of Algiers and in the western town of Tiaret. Several people were reported injured Sunday in Larbaa, about 30 miles south of Algiers, when fundamentalists attempted to organize a march on city hall. The Algerian Press Service said the protesters were dispersed with tear gas.

Eight people were killed and 34 others wounded in confrontations between fundamentalists and security forces in Algiers on Friday, when authorities attempted to prevent Islamic leaders from using weekly prayers as a vehicle for political protest.

The state of emergency declared at 8 p.m. Sunday allows the Interior Ministry to close mosques, search houses and offices, try those threatening security before military tribunals and detain workers taking part in unauthorized strikes.

It would also give the government the power to dissolve the country’s municipal councils, about half of which have been under the control of the fundamentalists since local elections in June, 1990.

Algerian newspapers over the past several days have complained that many of the councils have largely stopped providing normal services and instead have been converted to centers of political action for the Islamic Front.

But the front has been badly crippled by the arrest of its top leadership. Its seven top leaders, including philosophy Prof. Abassi Madani and cleric Ali Belhaj, have been in detention since an earlier state of siege was declared in June.

After the installation of the new military-backed government last month, many of the remaining top front leaders have been rounded up, including a relatively moderate provisional leader, prompting some government critics to fear that the arrests have left the radicals in charge and simply forced the movement to go underground.

The statement Sunday appealing to army soldiers to disobey their commanders was signed by Abderrazak Radjam, president of the front’s national information committee, who Sunday night was reported to be in hiding to avoid arrest.

In announcing the state of emergency, the five-member High Committee of State, headed by former revolutionary war hero Mohammed Boudiaf, indicated that the 12-month state of emergency could be lifted earlier if conditions warrant.

Boudiaf earlier Sunday met with eight top representatives of Algeria’s political parties and reportedly gave them assurances that political parties would be permitted to continue their activities and that the democratic process would continue despite the imposition of the state of emergency.

Some members of the secular opposition had welcomed the intervention of the army last month, fearing that Bendjedid had gone too far toward accommodating the fundamentalists and fearing that the Islamic Front, once it took power, would ban other political parties and unilaterally declare the imposition of an Islamic state.