A suicide attack on a police station in western Algeria killed two policeman after one officer jumped on the attacker to protect his colleagues from the blast, state news agency APS and police said on Thursday.

According to Reuters, in the attack early on Thursday morning, an armed militant wearing a suicide belt tried to enter a police post in Tiaret, around 300 kilometers (190 miles) west of Algiers.

"One of the officers in an act of bravery, threw himself on the attacker to protect the others in the entrance of the police station," APS said, adding that another officer who was wounded in the blast later died.

It was the first suicide attack in months in Algeria. A militant tried to blow himself up at a police station in Constantine in April and another was shot dead in an attempted bombing in the same city in February.

Gunmen attacked an Algerian military patrol in an area south of the capital in June, slightly wounding four gendarmes, in an attack later claimed by Daesh.

Source: Wam