* Police were guarding Chinese construction workers * Attack is deadliest in Algeria in nearly a year * Algeria sees upsurge in al Qaeda attacks in recent weeks
(Releads with lower official death toll) By Christian Lowe and Lamine Chikhi ALGIERS, June 18 (Reuters) - Gunmen ambushed and killed 18 Algerian paramilitary police and a civilian, the government said on Thursday, the North African oil and gas producer's deadliest insurgent attack in nearly a year. Algeria's government has been fighting Islamist militants allied to the al Qaeda network. Security forces have been able to reduce the level of violence but, although weakened, the insurgents remain a threat. The militants attacked on Wednesday using roadside bombs and guns when the paramilitary police passed in a convoy along a highway about 180 km (110 miles) east of the capital, the newspaper Echorouk reported. When they left the scene of the attack they took six police off-road vehicles as well as weapons and police uniforms, the newspaper quoted security sources and local people as saying. The official news agency APS confirmed the attack on Thursday and said 18 paramilitary police were killed and six injured. One civilian was killed and two others wounded, the agency said. "As soon as this criminal act was perpetrated, a vast pursuit operation was launched by units of the National Popular Army (ANP), which is still under way," said APS. Echorouk said earlier 24 paramilitary police died in the ambush, carried out between the settlements of El Meher and El Mansourah on the N5 highway, a major route linking the capital, Algiers, to cities in the east of Algeria. It said the police had been assigned to guard Chinese construction workers building a new east-west road across the country. It was not clear if any of the workers were hurt. The lower official toll still makes it the deadliest attack since Aug. 19 last year, when 48 people were killed in a bomb attack on a paramilitary police training school east of Algiers. For a chronology of major insurgent attacks in Algeria, click on [ID:nLI602075]. SHARP DECLINE Algeria is still emerging from a conflict in the 1990s between Islamists and government forces in which 200,000 people were killed, according to estimates from international non-governmental organisations. Security crackdowns and a campaign to persuade the militants to lay down their arms have led to a sharp decline in the number of attacks. A hard core of Islamist militants is still active, now under the banner of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and the past few weeks have seen an upsurge in violence. Insurgents killed five paramilitary gendarmes late in May and a week later shot dead nine soldiers. At the start of this month, AQIM killed a British man, Edwin Dyer, after holding him hostage in neighbouring Mali. Security experts say the increase in attacks does not mean the group is growing in strength but it retains the capability to strike at government targets. "Make no mistake, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is declining," Rachid Ould Bousseafa, the deputy editor of the Echorouk newspaper who writes on security issues, told Reuters. However, he said: "Al Qaeda wanted to send a strong message that it is capable of planning and executing a big attack." Although AQIM has not attacked oil and gas infrastructure in Algeria, international energy firms -- which include BP <BP.L>, StatoilHydro <STL.OL>, Repsol <REP.MC> and Total <TOTF.PA> -- operate under heavy security. (Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
Police detain a human rights activist protesting against the visit of China's President Hu Jintao in front of the Presidential Palace in Bratislava June 18, 2009, before Hu's arrival in the ...
