Press reports from Algeria say one hundred rebels from the country's most militant Islamic faction, the GIA, have surrendered to the government under an amnesty declared by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika earlier this year.

A newspaper Alkhabar said the guerrillas turned themselves in on Friday and Saturday; and that an unspecified number of them were still negotiating the terms of their surrender.

The amnesty is part of a national reconciliation plan aimed at ending seven-years of violence in which an estimated one-hundred-thousand people have died.

A referendum on the plan is due later this month.

In the latest reports of violence, ten soldiers and four Islamic militants were killed in separate incidents south-east of the capital Algiers.