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FT 11 FEB 92 / Eight Algerian police killed after clampdown
By FRANCIS GHILES
EIGHT Algerian policemen were ambushed and killed yesterday, the first full
day of a state of emergency imposed by the military-backed rulers to crush
Moslem fundamentalist agitation for a resumption of the electoral process,
writes Francis Ghiles.
The killings were reported as the head of Algeria's five-man presidency, Mr
Mohammed Boudiaf, told the nation last night that he had imposed the
12-month emergency to fight fundamentalism as embodied in the Islamic
Salvation Front (FIS). Speaking in a vernacular Arabic all his compatriots
would have understood well, he argued against any dialogue with the FIS.
'When I stretched out my hand, they sent only a threatening letter.'
His broadcast came at the end of a day that witnessed the killing of six
policemen in an ambush by fundamentalist gunmen in the Casbah, the ancient
heart of the capital. Two other policemen were stabbed to death yesterday by
the companions of a man they had arrested in Bordj Menaiel, 40km east of
Algiers.
See Feature, 'Limits of Repression'
The Financial Times
London Page 3