ALGIERS: More than 60 people, mostly police officers, were wounded in clashes with supporters at a football match in Algeria, local authorities said on Wednesday.
The fixture between top division club MC Alger and third league Village Moussa was marred by repeated stone-throwing before the referee called it off in extra time over fears for players’ safety, government newspaper El-Moudjahid reported.
The round of 16 Algeria Cup match took place in Jijel, 360 kilometers (220 miles) east of Algiers, where Village Moussa fans started throwing stones after their team conceded a third goal in the first half.
Security forces responded with tear gas and ensuing clashes wounded 62 people including 45 police officers.
Jijel Civil Protection official Ahlem Boumala told the Algeria Press Service the injuries were caused by “stones and projectiles.”
Algeria has long been plagued by violence, sometimes deadly, with fans targeting both police and players.
In mid-November around 40 people including 18 policemen were wounded after a first division match in the capital city.
The previous month, more than 80 people including 30 police officers were injured after fans invaded the pitch at a top-flight match in Bordj Bou Arreridj, around 200km south-east of Algiers.
In 2014 Albert Ebosse, a Cameroon striker with JS Kabylie, was killed on the field by a projectile thrown from the stands.
The phenomenon has continued despite sanctions, fair-play campaigns and an interior ministry commission of enquiry.

BRASILIA: Honduras will hold talks with Israel, joined by the United States, aimed at opening an embassy in Jerusalem, the countries said on Tuesday, as the small Central American nation looks to follow US President Donald Trump’s much-criticized move.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez held a meeting in the Brazilian capital on the sidelines of the inauguration of right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro
The three agreed to hold meetings in the capitals of each country “to advance the decision process to open embassies in both Tegucigalpa and Jerusalem,” as well as “strengthen political relations and coordinate development cooperation in Honduras,” the countries said in a joint statement.
The right-leaning Hernandez is the latest leader to consider following Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested city of Jerusalem, which infuriated Palestinians and drew international condemnation.
Hernandez told reporters the trilateral talks represented “an important political alliance.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut off aid to Honduras, a poor nation of less than 10 million people, over caravans of migrants crossing Mexico heading for the US border.
Guatemala, another country seeking closer US ties, quickly joined Trump’s decision and moved its embassy to Jerusalem just two days after the US opened offices in May. Paraguay also followed, but a new government backtracked in September.
Netanyahu said on Sunday that Bolsonaro told him it was a question of “when, not if” Brazil would move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

ANKARA: Turkish authorities detained 12 suspects over alleged links to the Daesh group including two French women sought by Interpol, state media reported on Wednesday.
The suspects, including French, Syrian and Algerian citizens, were taken into custody after anti-terror raids in the northwestern Turkish province of Bursa, state news agency Anadolu said.
Among those caught were three women including the two French women who had red and blue Interpol notices issued against them, Anadolu and the private DHA news agency reported.
Some of the suspects had been in Syria with the extremist group before moving to Bursa, the agency said, without giving further detail.
Another suspect was believed to have been a guard for an Daesh commander.
Five of the suspects have been sent to deportation centers, Anadolu said.
Bursa is Turkey’s fourth most populous province with more two million residents.
There have been a series of raids against Daesh suspects in Turkey in the past two weeks, especially ahead of New Year celebrations.
Earlier on Wednesday, a man and a woman were detained in the central province of Kayseri, accused of having Daesh links and believed to be preparing an attack on New Year celebrations after arriving in Turkey from France three months earlier.
And six foreign nationals were also taken into custody in the eastern province of Elazig over suspected ties to Daesh, Anadolu reported.
Four of the foreigners — whose identities or countries of origin were not given — were deported, the agency said, quoting unnamed security sources.
Turkey was hit by a series of terror attacks in 2015 and 2016 blamed on Daesh and Kurdish militants.
The last terror attack claimed by Daesh was during New Year celebrations in 2017 when a gunman killed 39 people in an elite Istanbul nightclub.

KHARTOUM: Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir ordered authorities Tuesday to set up a committee to investigate violence during anti-government protests, even as a range of political groups called for a “new regime” in the country.
At least 19 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests that erupted in cities including the capital Khartoum on December 19, after a government decision to hike the price of bread.
Human rights group Amnesty International has put the death toll at 37.
“President Omar Al-Bashir has ordered the setting up of a fact-finding committee headed by the justice minister to look into the incidents of the past few days,” state news agency SUNA reported, quoting a presidential decree.
The government raised the price of a loaf of bread from one Sudanese pound to three (about two to six US cents).
The ensuing protests quickly evolved into anti-government rallies in Khartoum and several other cities.
In the initial days of the protests, several buildings and offices of Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party were torched by protesters.
Riot police have managed to disperse the rallies so far, while security agents have arrested several opposition leaders and activists in a crackdown on suspected organizers.

Sudan is facing an acute foreign exchange crisis and soaring inflation despite Washington lifting an economic embargo in October 2017.
The foreign exchange crisis has steadily escalated since Sudan’s partition in 2011, when South Sudan broke away, taking with it the bulk of oil revenues.
Inflation has hit 70 percent while shortages of bread and fuel have hit several cities.
On Tuesday, 22 political groups, including some close to the government, called for a “new regime” in the country.
“The current Bashir regime due to its political, economic, regional and international isolation cannot overcome the crisis,” the group said in a joint statement issued in English at a press conference in Khartoum.
“It can only be revised by establishing a new regime in the country that can regain the confidence of the Sudanese people.”
The groups, who had participated in a national dialogue process that Bashir launched in 2014 to tackle the country’s social and economic problems, called for a new “transitional government… that would hold elections for restoring democracy and public freedoms.”
Sudan Central Bank governor Mohamed Khair Al-Zubair said at a separate press conference that the bank aimed to rein in inflation to 27 percent in 2019 by raising production of key commodities like wheat, oil and sugar.

CAIRO: An Egyptian activist expects to return to prison “at any time” after an appeals court upheld a two-year sentence against her for posting a video online in which she criticized the government and decried sexual harassment, her attorney said Tuesday.
Lawyer Doaa Moustafa said the Misdemeanor Court of Appeals in Cairo’s Maadi suburb, on Sunday upheld Amal Fathy’s sentence for insulting employees in a bank and using abusive language to criticize state institutions and decry sexual harassment against women.
Fathy had been sentenced in September, but her sentence was suspended on appeal after she paid 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($560).
However, she was not released on house arrest until Dec. 27 pending an investigation into separate charges.
Now, she expects to be taken into custody “at any time,” following the court’s Sunday ruling, Moustafa said.
Moustafa said Fathy can still appeal her original two-year sentence before the Court of Cassation, Egypt’s final recourse for appeals in criminal cases.
Rights group Amnesty International decried Sunday’s court ruling, saying it was an “outrageous case of injustice.”
“The fact that a survivor of sexual harassment is being punished with a two-year prison sentence simply for speaking out about her experience is utterly disgraceful. This verdict makes a mockery of justice and should be a stain on the conscience of the Egyptian authorities,” said Najia Bounaim, Amnesty International’s North Africa director, in a statement Sunday.
Bounaim added: “The timing of the verdict is particularly cruel, coming only days after Amal was reunited with her loved ones.”
Fathy was released last week pending an investigation into charges including disseminating false news, misuse of social media networks to spread material that could hurt security and the public interest and joining an outlawed group.
“Membership in an outlawed group” is Egyptian government parlance for having ties to a range of groups that it has outlawed, including the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization authorities have banned, labeling it a terrorist group.
Under terms of her house arrest, Fathy must report to a nearby police station weekly and is allowed to leave only to pick up medication or visit a police station or court.
Police arrested Fathy in May after she posted a 12-minute video online criticizing the state for deteriorating public services and not taking measures against sexual harassment. She said she was harassed at a local branch of a state-owned bank. The video also shows her using profanities to describe her experience at the bank and repeatedly insulting the state.
Fathy is a former activist in the pro-democracy April 6 Movement, which was at the forefront of the 2011 the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.
Egyptian authorities have waged a campaign against activists who speak out against the government.
Since leading the military’s 2013 overthrow of an elected but divisive president — the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammad Mursi — President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has overseen a crackdown on dissent. Authorities have jailed thousands of Islamists along with secular, pro-democracy advocates, imposing tight controls over the media and rolling back freedoms won in a popular 2011 uprising.
El-Sisi says his government’s top priorities are security and overhauling the battered economy.