Algeria: most criminal networks are linked to terrorismon

Organised crime increased by 5 percent per year in Algeria, according to statistics provided by the National Gendarmerie command. International networks work nowadays in organised crimes and crimes relating to terrorism using armed violence, said a report issued by the National Gendarmerie.

Most of these networks work in south of Algeria and borders, says the same report. According to investigations led by the National Gendarmerie, criminal networks are linked to terrorist groups. They supply terrorists through drugs, tobacco and weapons smuggling.

The death toll from Islamist rebel attacks and raids by government forces in Algeria rose to 25 in June from 17 in May, according to a Reuters count based on newspaper reports. The June estimate, 19 rebels and six soldiers, brings to 207 the number of people killed in the first half of 2007.

Algeria is emerging from more than a decade of conflict that began when the military-backed government scrapped 1992 legislative elections a radical Islamic party was poised to win. Authorities had feared an Iranian style revolution. Up to 200,000 people have been killed during the ensuing violence.

The bloodshed has subsided sharply in recent years from a 1990s peak, and last year the government freed more than 2,000 former Islamist guerrillas under an amnesty designed to put an end to the conflict.

But guerrilla attacks by regrouped Islamist militants persist and on April 11 they carried out their most spectacular attack in recent years by bombing the government headquarters in Algiers and two police buildings, killing 33 people.