Algeria leader: solve youth problems or risk bombs

ALGIERS, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The number of suicide bombers in Algeria could increase unless the country offers fresh prospects and a brighter future for its young, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said on Tuesday.

A series of suicide attacks claimed by Al Qaeda's North African arm this year has raised the spectre of a return to the civil violence that tore through the oil and gas exporting country during the 1990s.

Early last month, a man blew himself up in a crowd waiting to see Bouteflika in the eastern town of Batna, killing 20 people.

Two days later, a suicide truck bombing killed 37 people at a coast guard barracks in Dellys east of Algiers.

A triple suicide attack earlier in the year in the capital left 33 dead and another inside a barracks in the town of Lakhdaria killed eight soldiers.

"The suicide bombers of Algiers, Lakhdaria, Batna and Dellys could become much more numerous if we do not take things seriously," Bouteflika said in a speech at a national conference on youth that was attended by senior government officials.

"The problem of the future of youth is more than ever imposed on the authorities," he said, and called for "ideas, analysis and especially large coordinated action."

Up to 200,000 people have been killed in Algeria since 1992 after military-backed authorities scrapped parliamentary elections that an Islamist party was poised to win.

The violence has subsided in recent years but some bloodshed continues, mainly in the Kabylie region east of Algiers.

The government has launched a five-year plan worth $140 billion to restore hope among Algeria's 33 million inhabitants and put the economy back on track, but social problems remain a headache to the authorities.

The economy offers too few jobs to the population, of which 70 percent is under 30. According to official figures, the national unemployment rate is estimated at 12 percent but among people under 30 it was 75 percent in 2005.

Dozens of young people can usually be seen queuing outside European consulates for visas to travel in search of a better life in the West. Many fail, forcing them to attempt dangerous sea crossings to Europe.

Last year, coastguards said they found a total of 42 bodies washed up on Algeria's coastline, most of them would-be migrants.

"The state needs to improve its youth policy ... to deter the desperate search for visas abroad," Bouteflika said. "How, indeed, do we give our young people confidence in their own abilities and the institutions of their country?"