One killed in attack on Algeria security forces: residents

An Algerian police vehicle passes through a crowd near the site of a suicide bomb blast outside a police station in 2008

A suicide bomber killed at least one person in Algeria's eastern Kabylie region Sunday by driving a car rigged with explosives into a building used by security forces, local residents said.

The attack occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning and targeted a brigade of gendarmes at a village near the city of Tizi Ouzou about 110 kilometres (70 miles) east of the capital.

Official sources did not confirm that an attack occurred.

The attack killed the night watchman at the village's town hall, directly adjacent to the gendarmes building, local residents said. Eight gendarmes were also injured in the attack.

Other residents said that the attack was not carried out with a rigged car but a bomb planted near the gendarmes' building.

The Sahara region has in recent years seen a dramatic increase in the activities of smugglers and militants linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has claimed several attacks on foreigners.

In June AQIM claimed responsibility for killing 11 Algerian paramilitary police in the deadliest Islamist attack in the oil-rich state for a year.

In response Algerian army chief Ahmed Gaed Salah said the military was determined to eradicate militancy and that armed groups could surrender under a 2005 peace and reconciliation accord or await "certain death."

AQIM was founded in the late 1990s by radical Algerian Islamists who sought the overthrow of the Algerian government to be replaced with Islamic rule. The organisation linked to Al-Qaeda in 2006.

Believed to number around 300 men, its influence spans large parts of north and west Africa and it has raked in millions of dollars from ransoms, funding a tiny but well-oiled army.

One killed in attack on Algeria security forces: residents

An Algerian police vehicle passes through a crowd near the site of a suicide bomb blast outside a police station in 2008