Algeria Politics

Muslim fundamentalists swept to power in Algeria on Friday, gaining almost half the seats in the country's first multi-party National Assembly as crowds of chanting supporters filled the streets.

The government has banned all demonstrations in the capital, Algiers, following fierce rioting last week during a massive pro-democracy demonstration. For two months, the military-backed government has been grappling with violent protests that have left at least 55 people dead. The unrest began among ethnic Berbers in the eastern Kabyle region but has spread to Algiers. Three police officers were reported killed and dozens of people hurt Monday during riots in Kabyle.

Protests broke out in the Algerian capital and two other cities Friday after army favorite Abdelaziz Bouteflika was declared president in an election so besmirched by fraud charges that his six competitors quit the race. Clashes erupted in Algiers after the announcement that Bouteflika had won Thursday's election. Witnesses said police in full riot gear charged into hundreds of anti-Bouteflika demonstrators in the capital.

Police fired water cannons and tear gas at rioters Thursday as hundreds of thousands of protesters marched on Algeria's presidential palace demanding greater democracy and denouncing unrest. Two people were killed and more than 400 were injured in the turmoil.

Police fired water cannons and tear gas at rioters Thursday as hundreds of thousands of protesters marched on Algeria's presidential palace demanding greater democracy and denouncing unrest. Two people were killed and more than 400 were injured in the turmoil.

Algerian political parties began a flurry of consultations following President Liamine Zeroual's call for early elections, and a newspaper said Saturday that his decision to step down was a "coup d'etat in disguise" by the powerful military establishment.

Tens of thousands of Algerians, a handful chanting fundamentalist Islamic slogans, flanked the streets of this capital city Wednesday as the funeral cortege of assassinated leader Mohammed Boudiaf slowly filed to a burial site in a suburban cemetery reserved for national heroes. Nervous police, army and special security forces, some carrying submachine guns with cartridge belts wrapped around their necks, controlled the generally passive crowd with few incidents of violence.

Five months after a coup ended Algeria's democratic experiment, the North African state now faces the prospect of open conflict following the assassination Monday of Mohammed Boudiaf, the head of its ruling council. The daring murder clearly marks a political threshold in Algeria's escalating crisis. Militant activists appear to be replacing the moderate Muslim forces that have led the drive for political and economic change over the past year, according to U.S. analysts.

The abrupt coup d'etat that stamped out an impending Muslim fundamentalist victory at the polls in Algeria early last week brought a collective sigh of relief from the surrounding monarchies and military regimes of the Arab world who have nervously heard the growl of Islamic thunder on their own horizons.

Tens of thousands of Muslim fundamentalists marched to the presidential palace in Algiers to demand the dissolution of Parliament, the release of political prisoners and an end to government control of the media, witnesses said. The demonstration was called by the Iranian-supported Islamic Salvation Front.

Wrestling to end a civil insurgency that has killed thousands of people, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika faced a new challenge Saturday when his 8-month-old government resigned. The president accepted the collective resignation of his Cabinet after meeting with Prime Minister Ahmed Benbitour in the morning. He immediately charged close aide Ali Benflis with forming a new government, and later in the day Benflis unveiled his Cabinet.

Protests broke out in the Algerian capital and two other cities Friday after army favorite Abdelaziz Bouteflika was declared president in an election so besmirched by fraud charges that his six competitors quit the race. Clashes erupted in Algiers after the announcement that Bouteflika had won Thursday's election. Witnesses said police in full riot gear charged into hundreds of anti-Bouteflika demonstrators in the capital.

Algerian political parties began a flurry of consultations following President Liamine Zeroual's call for early elections, and a newspaper said Saturday that his decision to step down was a "coup d'etat in disguise" by the powerful military establishment.

President Liamine Zeroual, battling an Islamic insurgency and economic woes, announced Friday that he will shorten his term and call an early election before March. Zeroual, 57, made his statement on nationwide television. He didn't give a date for his resignation, though presumably he will remain in office until a successor is elected. He was elected to the presidency in November 1995 for a five-year term.

Opponents of Algeria's military-backed government disputed official results that showed 86% of Algeria's voters approved a referendum banning Islamic parties from government and giving the president more power. With a turnout of 79%, the referendum to revise the constitution was opposed by just 14% of voters, Interior Minister Mustafa Benmansour said. But opposition parties and many Algerian journalists suggested turnout figures and results were fabricated.

Thirty-eight Algerian political, union and other leaders signed a pact Sunday outside Algiers at the end of a disputed national conference intended to pave the way for a multi-party system and general elections next year. President Liamine Zeroual was shown live on Algerian state television applauding the one female and 37 male signatories at the conference, which was boycotted by two main secular parties and from which radical Islamists were barred.

The Algerian military regime Thursday named a 64-year-old diplomat and leader of a war veterans' association as the new head of state to replace Mohammed Boudiaf, who was assassinated four days ago, apparently by an officer assigned to the presidential security guard.

Atop the white stucco walls and red tile roofs of this aging seaside city, they squat like spaceships, their sleek metal frames probing the blue Mediterranean sky from out of high-rise apartment buildings and the ancient recesses of the Casbah. For modern Algerians, the parabolic antennas that have sprouted on rooftops by the thousands are a way of nurturing the former French colony's lifeline to the mother ship and the rest of the modern Western world.

When Algeria's military-backed government insisted on staging elections two weeks ago, the odds were good for a disaster. The country was, after all, in the midst of a vicious civil war, and key political opponents were either in jail or in exile. Yet when former Gen.

When Lounes Matoub was kidnaped from an outdoor cafe in the Algerian mountains this week, no one doubted that his 15 armed captors were radical Islamic fundamentalists. As they grabbed Matoub, one of Algeria's most popular singers, they harassed customers for drinking alcohol and opposing "the law of God." Now Matoub's ethnic Berber people, a fiercely independent force in Algeria, have vowed "total war" against Muslim fundamentalists if the 38-year-old singer is not released.