Algeria Islamic Group Rejects Call for Election

Algeria’s main militant Muslim group Saturday rejected a call by the country’s army-backed government for presidential elections in November, saying the authorities were trying to win legitimacy by force.

“The Islamic Salvation Front [FIS] refuses point-blank these elections as they are proposed by the putschists. . . ,” the outlawed group said in a statement signed by one of its spokesmen, Anwar Haddam, from his exile in Washington.

“The junta [rulers] have proposed to hold presidential elections only in the aim to win internal legitimacy which will enable them to get more financial and military support from abroad to pursue terrorizing the people and blocking its liberation and prosperity,” the FIS statement added.

Algeria said Friday that it will hold free and fair presidential elections Nov. 16 and had asked the heads of the United Nations, the Arab League and the Organization of African Unity to send official representatives to watch the poll.

The FIS warned “against any attempt to internationalize the Algerian crisis and against any form of foreign meddling in the internal Algerian affairs.”

It said the election “will prolong the confrontation and . . . the people’s tragedy” and called on foreign governments to cut diplomatic ties and non-humanitarian aid to the North African country.

About 40,000 people have been killed since Algeria plunged into civil strife in January, 1992, when the authorities scrapped general elections that the FIS was poised to win.

Also Saturday, Algerian security forces said they killed a suspected bomber after they identified the perpetrators of two car bombings that occurred Thursday near a residential compound for senior officials outside Algiers, killing a girl.