Two Algerian soldiers, including an officer, were killed when a bomb exploded during an army operation in the north of the country, the defense ministry said Sunday.
Captain Fateh Bensmail and Sergeant Zakaria Khaldi were killed Saturday night, the ministry said in a statement, after a home-made bomb exploded during a search and sweep operation in the province of Medea, south of the capital Algiers.
The deaths bring the total number of Algerian soldiers killed this year to four, Agence France Presse reported.
One soldier was killed on June 20 in a clash with "an armed terrorist group" in the central province of Ain Defla, the ministry announced last Sunday, while another died in a February attack in Timiaouine, on the southern border with Mali.
Algerian authorities use the term "terrorist" to describe armed extremists who have been active in the country since the early 1990s.
