PARIS, March 15 '98  (Reuters) - Bombs killed
                  412 Algerian civilians and wounded 1,572 in
                  1997, the Algerian daily La Nouvelle
                  Republique said on Sunday.

                  The 177 bombings recorded during the year
                  included 27 booby-trapped vehicles, five
                  parcel bombs and six home-made mines, it
                  said.

                  The newspaper did not say who was
                  responsible for the attacks but the authorities,
                  who have said thousands of civilians have
                  died in bomb attacks in the past six years,
                  have blamed Moslem rebels.

                  In the latest such attack, five people were
                  wounded on Saturday when a bomb exploded
                  near a high school in Algiers, according to the
                  security forces.

                  Five schoolgirls were wounded in a similar
                  bomb attack in Algiers 11 days ago.

                  Al Acil newspaper said on Sunday that a
                  bomb stuffed with nails and bolts and hidden
                  in a bag was defused on Saturday in a cafe in
                  Algiers central Port Said neighbourhood.

                  Meanwhile, the Algerian security forces said
                  in statement on Sunday that Moslem rebels
                  have killed four civilians overnight in the
                  western region of Oran.

                  They said, in the statement read on state-run
                  radio, that the four civilians were killed at Bir
                  el Jir area in Oran province, 350 km (218
                  miles) west of Algiers. They gave no more
                  details.

                  In the eastern city of Annaba, three gunmen
                  abducted a postal worker on Friday, and
                  dumped his bullet-riddled body in the city the
                  next day, said Liberte newspaper on Sunday.

                  Algeria plunged into violence in early 1992,
                  after the authorities cancelled a general
                  election in which radical Islamists had taken a
                  commanding lead. More than 65,000 people
                  have died since then, according to Western
                  estimates.

                  The government said in January that up to the
                  end of December 1997 about 26,000 civilians
                  and members of the government forces had
                  died violently, but it gave no death toll for
                  Moslem rebels.