AT LEAST 13 soldiers have been killed at an army post east of the Algerian capital of Algiers, after Islamist extremists attacked while the soldiers watched a live televised speech from the country’s president.

Two militants in the group were killed by soldiers at the post in Kabyle, some 80 miles east of Algiers, officials said, adding that security forces were sweeping nearby areas including the Yakourene forest, a hideout of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, in a search for other suspects.

The attack is the deadliest on security forces in Algeria since July 2009, when at least 14 soldiers were reported killed in an ambush on a military convoy in Damous, near the northern coastal city of Tipaza.

The soliders were watching President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announce a series of constitutional and electoral reforms Friday night “aimed at deepening the democratic process” amid upheavals in neighboring North African countries.

The announcement followed a February move to lift a 19-year-old state of emergency, put in place at the start of a brutal Islamist insurgency.

An estimated 200,000 people — insurgents, civilians and soldiers — have died since violence erupted in 1992, when the army cancelled the country’s first multi-party elections and stepped in to prevent a likely victory by a Muslim fundamentalist party.

Security forces have brought calm to much of the country, but sporadic attacks by insurgents continue, particularly in the mountainous Kabyle region, a stronghold for al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which was officially formed in 2006 from the remnants of an insurgency movement, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but most attacks in Algeria are blamed on al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

AP