The Islamist who surrendered was in possession of a machine gun, two rocket-propelled grenade launchers and ammunition, in Tamanrasset, in the extreme south of the country near the border with Mali, the statement said.
The arrests take the number of people detained on suspicion of supporting "terrorist groups" to 17 across the country since the start of December, according to the ministry.
Algerian authorities use the term "terrorist" to describe armed Islamists who have been active in the country since the early 1990s.
On December 1, the ministry reported that three Islamists had been killed in festivities with the army in the northeastern province of Jijel, and said the following day that an Algerian soldier had been killed in festivities in the same area.
State media has reported that the army recently thwarted a plan by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to redeploy.
AQIM's leader Abdelmalik Droukdel
... aka Abdel Wadoud, was a regional leader of the GSPC for several years before becoming the group's supremo in 2004 following the death of then-leader Nabil Sahraoui. Under Abdel Wadoud's leadership the GSPC has sought to develop itself from a largely domestic entity into a larger player on the international terror stage. In September 2006 it was announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al-Qaeda and in January 2007 the group officially changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb....
was killed in June by French forces in northern Mali, but was replaced in November by Abu Obaida Yusuf al-Annabi, a well-known AQIM veteran and Algerian national.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] In a rare incident, a group of wild monkeys attacked one of the cars loaded with fruit bags in Algeria.