Algerian soldier dies in blast

An Algerian daily newspaper reports that a roadside bomb has killed a soldier and wounded two others in the mountains about 100km east of the capital. Tuesday's report in the Arabic daily Echourouk said the bomb went off as a military convoy was passing by the forested area in the Kabylie region. The predominantly Berber region has been a battleground between government forces and the local branch of al-Qaeda. On Thursday, a police vehicle was attacked in the city of Tizi-Ouzou in the same region and a police officer was killed and two wounded. Last week, three other roadside bombs went off near a military base in the Kabyle. Algeria has been fighting an Islamist insurgency since the 1990s.