ALGIERS Another 10 people have died in rioting centered in Algeria's ethnic Berber region, press reports said Wednesday, as a defiant President Abdelaziz Bouteflika vowed to hold on to power and signaled a crackdown on unrest may be imminent.

Dozens of people were injured in the latest violence, AFP quoted the papers as saying.

In an impassioned speech to a rally in southern Algeria on Tuesday, Bouteflika admitted "Algeria is in crisis," but said he was willing to start talks to find a peaceful solution.

"I am not a captain who abandons a sinking ship -- I am here, I am staying, in line with the will of the people who elected me," Bouteflika told the rally in Tamanrasset.

The speech came against a backdrop of ongoing riots against his regime that have killed up to 90 people in the past two months, according to unofficial figures.

The speech also came after nearly a million people joined a Berber-led antigovernment march last week in Algiers which turned riotous and bloody, and which presented the biggest challenge yet to Bouteflika's leadership.

The demonstration prompted a government announcement on Monday that it was banning marches in Algiers, a move that would open the way for military troops to move against protestors.

The rioting has taken a heavy toll on police and paramilitary gendarmes, with eight being killed since Monday, according to press reports.

The daily newspaper *** L'Expression *** said Wednesday that two policemen were shot dead Tuesday near the towns of Ouzellaguen and Akbou, near the Kabylie city of Bejaia, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Algiers.

The paper said the officers were believed to have been shot by a radical Islamic group called the Salafist Group for Predication and Combat (GSPC), which has declared its support for the political unrest in Kabylie.

The *** Liberte *** newspaper said a third police officer had been killed in the main Kabylie city of Tizi Ouzou, 110 kilometers (68 miles) east of Algiers, while a paramilitary gendarme died at Azazga, in the same region.

Another paper, *** El Khabar***, said two other gendarmes were killed in rioting at Bordj Mira, in the region of Bejaia. Two gendarmes were killed on Monday.

Nine demonstrators have been killed since the beginning of the week, four of them on Tuesday, the reports said.

At least one protester was killed Tuesday in Akbou and another in Larbaa Nath-Irathen, both towns near Tizi Ouzou.

Some 30 people were injured in rioting in Bouira, 120 kilometers (70 miles) east of Algiers, and at least 50 people hurt in other towns in the region.

In other parts of eastern Algeria, a 13-year-old demonstrator was reported killed at Ain Mlila, near Oum el-Bouaghi, 550 kilometers (330 miles) southeast of the capital, and another protester died at Ain Touta, in the nearby Aures region.

The protests, sparked by the police killing of a Berber youth on April 18, began as an appeal for more recognition of Berber cultural rights but have quickly encompassed broader demands for better social conditions, increased employment and cheaper housing, and have spread beyond the borders of Kabylie.