Algiers: An armed Islamist group yesterday killed at least six private security guards in an ambush in the Kabylie region east of the capital, residents said.

The group of guards were on their way to pick up employees of the Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin when they were attacked 25km south of Tizi Ouzou. Six of the guards were killed instantly, one was seriously wounded while another was unaccounted for, the sources said. It was the deadliest attack in the country since July, when Islamists killed 11 in an attack on a military convoy.

Canadian firm SNC-Lavalin is building a water pipe network in the drought-hit area south of Tizi Ouzou.

The string of attacks have been blamed on Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which emerged out of the Algerian fundamentalist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and sees itself as the north African wing of Osama bin Laden’s network. Earlier this month Algerian government forces killed an armed Islamist identified as AQIM commander Mourad Louzai.