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Algerian militants

besiege mayor's

house, kill five

PARIS: Suspected Muslim militants besieged the house of a mayor in western Algeria, killing his pregnant wife, another woman and three babies with a bomb, an Algerian newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The attackers, numbering about 40, threw the bomb at the house in Rached-Oued Fodda village in the Chlef region after they failed to break into it on Monday night.

The mayor and a colleague had held them off for two hours, the Liberte newspaper said.

Four people were wounded as well as the five killed. Several neighbouring houses were damaged, it added.

Security forces killed seven Muslim militants during a sweep of guerrilla strongholds in the Kabylie region, Liberte also reported.

An estimated 40,000 people have been killed during three-and-a-half years of political violence which broke out when the army-backed authorities cancelled an election which Islamic fundamentalists were set to win.-Reuter