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Report: Al Qaeda No. 2 in Algeria Killed During Clash With Army
Thursday, April 26, 2007
ALGIERS, Algeria - The No. 2 Al Qaeda official in Algeria was killed
Thursday in a clash with an army patrol, the country's official APS news
agency reported, citing security officials.
Samir Mousaab was killed near the village of Si Moustapha in the Boumerdes
region, 25 miles east of the capital, Algiers, the report said.
It said Mousaab's body was identified by former members of the Salafist
Group for Call and Combat, or GSPC, an insurgent group that changed its name
to Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa when it announced its alliance with Al
Qaeda in January.
The group was built on the foundations of an Algerian insurgency to topple
Algeria's secular government that erupted in 1992 after the army canceled
elections that a Muslim fundamentalist party was set to win.
Up to 200,000 people - militants, security forces and civilians - have been
killed.
Thursday's clash came weeks after double suicide bombings on April 11 that
killed 33 people and injured 57. Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa claimed
responsibility for the attacks, coordinated suicide bombings targeting the
prime minister's office and a police station.
The attacks were the deadliest to hit the Algiers region since 2002, when a
bomb in a suburban market killed 38 people and injured 80.
Algeria has tried to turn the page on the insurgency through military
crackdowns and amnesty offers. Until recently, its efforts appeared
successful, with militants' ranks decimated and the holdouts isolated in
rural hideouts.
Reassured, foreign businesses returned to oil- and gas-rich Algeria, and
many foreign workers moved out of hotels and into apartments.
Yet violence has surged again recently, and Al Qaeda's North Africa wing has
claimed responsibility for several recent attacks on foreigners.
A March 3 bombing of a bus carrying workers for a Russian company killed a
Russian engineer and three Algerians. In December, an Algerian and a
Lebanese citizen were killed in an attack that targeted a bus carrying
foreign employees of an affiliate of the U.S. company Halliburton.
Report: Al Qaeda No. 2 in Algeria Killed During Clash With Army
Thursday, April 26, 2007
ALGIERS, Algeria - The No. 2 Al Qaeda official in Algeria was killed
Thursday in a clash with an army patrol, the country's official APS news
agency reported, citing security officials.
Samir Mousaab was killed near the village of Si Moustapha in the Boumerdes
region, 25 miles east of the capital, Algiers, the report said.
It said Mousaab's body was identified by former members of the Salafist
Group for Call and Combat, or GSPC, an insurgent group that changed its name
to Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa when it announced its alliance with Al
Qaeda in January.
The group was built on the foundations of an Algerian insurgency to topple
Algeria's secular government that erupted in 1992 after the army canceled
elections that a Muslim fundamentalist party was set to win.
Up to 200,000 people - militants, security forces and civilians - have been
killed.
Thursday's clash came weeks after double suicide bombings on April 11 that
killed 33 people and injured 57. Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa claimed
responsibility for the attacks, coordinated suicide bombings targeting the
prime minister's office and a police station.
The attacks were the deadliest to hit the Algiers region since 2002, when a
bomb in a suburban market killed 38 people and injured 80.
Algeria has tried to turn the page on the insurgency through military
crackdowns and amnesty offers. Until recently, its efforts appeared
successful, with militants' ranks decimated and the holdouts isolated in
rural hideouts.
Reassured, foreign businesses returned to oil- and gas-rich Algeria, and
many foreign workers moved out of hotels and into apartments.
Yet violence has surged again recently, and Al Qaeda's North Africa wing has
claimed responsibility for several recent attacks on foreigners.
A March 3 bombing of a bus carrying workers for a Russian company killed a
Russian engineer and three Algerians. In December, an Algerian and a
Lebanese citizen were killed in an attack that targeted a bus carrying
foreign employees of an affiliate of the U.S. company Halliburton.
