| Algerian security forces have arrested 19 people accused of being members of a logistical support network for an armed Islamic movement fighting the government, security officials said Monday. The people arrested and imprisoned in Bouira, a town in the northeastern Kabylie region, were informers for the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), the officials said. Security sources said the dismantled network in Bouira had been active since 1990, two years before a Muslim fundamentalist insurgency erupted after the army called off an election an Islamic party was poised to win. The GSPC, despite having several dissident offshoots, remains very active particularly in Kabylie, where two soldiers were killed and four injured in a bomb attack on Sunday. A local army chief said the movement had recently managed to recruit youths in the poorer districts of towns hit by unemployment. Its overall numbers are estimated at between 400 and 500. |