Algeria Troops Kill Two Armed Islamists
Algerian troops killed two suspected armed Islamists east of the capital on Tuesday, the defense ministry said, bringing to 14 the number of militants killed this month.
"An army detachment... eliminated two terrorists this morning, May 13, 2014, in the Gueltet Echakour locality in the Kaddara area of Boumerdes province," the ministry said.
It said the troops ambushed the two suspects and recovered two Kalashnikov assault rifles, a quantity of ammunition and a pair of binoculars.
Algeria has seen a decline in Islamist violence since the devastating civil war of the 1990s, but jihadists still operate in Boumerdes province and in the mainly Berber Kabylie region further east.
Since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 toppled dictators across the region, the country has been increasingly vulnerable to attacks from strife-torn Mali and Libya, with which it shares long desert borders.
Earlier this month, troops killed 12 Islamists in the far south, near the Mali border, the defence ministry said.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/130366 |