At least five people were killed and 30 injured when a bomb exploded at a marketplace in the northeast Algerian town of Tamzalt, medical sources told the official APS news agency. Residents earlier put the death toll at seven, with 15 wounded, and APS said its casualty figures were "unfortunately not definitive". The bomb went off on the weekly market day in the small town in the Bejaia region, about 260 kilometres (160 miles) from Algiers. Such attacks are generally blamed on Muslim fundamentalists fighting the secular regime.

The attack is the first to deliberately target civilians in a public place in the mainly ethnic Berber Kabylie region since Algeria's civil war began in 1992.

The bomb was placed in a drain at the entrance to the Tamzalt market and exploded at around 9:00 am (0800 GMT), the APS report said.

Algeria's Islamic extremist insurgency has claimed some 150,000 lives in ten years, according to the press and political parties.

Around 540 people, including 180 Islamic militants, have been killed in unrest since the start of this year, according to an AFP tally from official death tolls and press reports.

PHOTO CAPTION

Some 100,000 Berbers demonstrate in the streets of Algeria's largest Berber-speaking city, Tizi Ouzou, April 20, 2002, to protest against the arrests of Berber militants in restive Kabylie. The march coincided with the 22nd anniversary of what activists call the Berber spring, marking an uprising in Kabylie against the central government in 1980. Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters