Two booby-trap bombs laid by armed extremists killed two soldiers and wounded 13 others on patrol in highlands near the north-east Algerian town of Setif, newspapers reported Tuesday.
The bombs were laid on and beside a track regularly taken by an army patrol in a region where units of the radical Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) are known to be based and operate.
Four of the wounded soldiers sustained serious injuries, the press reports said.
Since the beginning of May, violence involving Muslim fundamentalists waging a guerrilla war against the secular government of the north African country has claimed 21 lives, according to official statements and press reports.
The insurgency, which began in 1992, has this year killed more than 230 people, according to the same sources.
The GSPC, which is on Washington's list of terrorist groups linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, is among two movements which have rejected a national reconciliation policy implemented by the government.