Al-Qaeda disputes Algerian claim
Group says Samir Moussaab was killed but denies he was a leader of its Maghreb wing.
The government said that he was tracked down via information gathered from ex-members of the group pardoned under a recent amnesty.
Algeria said Moussaab was the co-ordinator and second-in-command of al-Qaeda’s North African branch, the country’s official news agency, APS, reported.
On Saturday, Algerian authorities said security forces killed two Muslim fighters in Boumerdes, 50km east of Algiers.
One of the two killed was identified as Azzedine Kermiche, 31. A security source said two submachine guns were recovered from the men.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which changed its name from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) earlier this year, claimed responsibility for twin bombings in the capital Algiers that killed 33 people on April 11.
The GSPC began as an offshoot of another group that was waging an armed revolt against the government to establish an Islamic state.
The rebellion began in 1992 after the then military-backed authorities scrapped a parliamentary election an Islamic political party was set to win. Up to 200,000 people were killed in the ensuing bloodshed.
Residents said the Algiers attacks this month were the country’s first suicide bombings and heightened fears the North African oil exporting country was slipping back into violence.
December attack
The GSPC said it was behind an attack in December near Algiers that killed an Algerian and wounded nine people including four Britons and an American.
It also claimed responsibility for an attack on March 3 on a bus carrying workers for a Russian gas pipeline construction firm that killed three Algerians and a Russian.
Government forces have stepped up assaults on the group’s strongholds in the Kabylie region east of Algiers, hoping to wipe out what remains of it after an amnesty for Islamic fighters expired.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is led by Abdelmalek Droudkel, whose predecessor Nabil Sahraoui, was killed by the army in 2003.
Since the beginning of April, more than 80 people have been killed by violence in Algeria, according to numbers established through official counts and media reports.