6 Killed, 80 Hurt in Algerian Bombing

A truck bomb killed six people and injured at least 80, and gunmen shot to death a foreigner Saturday as Muslim fundamentalist insurgents sought to derail Algeria’s 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. The blast destroyed about 30 homes and was heard a dozen miles away, said witnesses.

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 had been expected to win.

The Islamic Salvation Front has condemned terrorist attacks but has supported the insurgency that has left more than 30,000 dead.

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

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.