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

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 southwest of the capital 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.

Another officer later succumbed to his wounds, the national police said in a statement.

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.