(Updates with background)

ALGIERS, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Suspected militants blew up a car carrying a former Islamist rebel leader who had accepted an Algerian government amnesty, wounding him seriously on Tuesday, a senior Islamist and hospital sources said.

Mustapha Kertali, founder of the banned Salvation Islamic Front (FIS) and once a leading member of its armed wing, was attacked after prayer at a mosque in Larbaa town, some 30 km (18 miles) south of Algiers, they said.

"The bomb exploded shortly after he started driving. The explosion tore off one of his legs but his life is not in danger," said Madani Mezrag, former chief of the disbanded Salvation Islamic Army.

A hospital source said Kertali was in intensive care, but bleeding had stopped.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack immediately.

Kertali, 61, surrendered to the authorities with several fellow rebels in 2000 under an amnesty.

He strongly supported another amnesty for rebels by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika last year, part of a wider national reconciliation plan to bring a definite end to more than a decade of bloodshed in Africa's second largest country.

About 300 guerrillas had given themselves up to the authorities under the move, but experts estimate several hundred more are still fighting in pockets of territory east of Algiers and in parts of the desert south.

Most are believed to belong to the al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

Al Qaeda's North Africa wing said last month it was planning a violent campaign against "infidels" and government forces in the Maghreb region and urged Muslims to stay away from possible targets, according to a statement posted on the Internet.

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.

AlertNet news is provided by