10 militants killed in Algeria
2006-06-21 23:03
Algiers - Algeria's army killed 10 suspected Islamic militants during a terror sweep on a craggy brushland hideout, said reports on Wednesday.
It was reported that the men, affiliated with the Salafist Group for Call and Combat - which had sworn allegiance to al-Qaeda - were killed on Tuesday in a crackdown in Ghzerwal, east of the capital.
The crackdown came after a bomb attack slightly injured three police officers at a train station on Monday in the nearby town of Boumerdes.
The report said that the army had been sweeping the region for a month in an operation code-named "Spider".
Violence claims 120 000 people
Since the start, soldiers had killed seven other people, taken in three militants who surrendered under an amnesty offer and destroyed more than 20 hideouts.
It was reported that one of the destroyed hideouts, a vast cave, included a workshop, where bombs that had recently hit Boumerdes were believed to have been built.
The North African nation had been fighting an Islamic uprising since 1992, after the army cancelled nationwide elections to thwart a likely victory by the now-banned Islamic Salvation Front. The violence had killed an estimated 120 000 people.
Attacks had grown sporadic in recent years. The number of militants had dwindled after years of army crackdowns and successive amnesty offers.
- AP