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Algeria intercepts Daesh cell, arrests former Al-Qaeda leader

July 27, 2017 at 5:44 pm

Former Al-Qaeda commander Mohamed Yacine Aknouche was killed in Algeria, security officials in the country revealed on 26 July 2017.

Algerian authorities intercepted a Daesh cell led by a former Al-Qaeda commander, security sources revealed yesterday.

Mohamed Yacine Aknouche, 43, was an affiliate of Algeria’s Islamic Armed Group (GIA), and was sentenced in absentia by a French court in 2004 to eight years prison for planning an attempted bombing in Strasbourg, according to the same source.

Algerian authorities reportedly captured Aknouche this week near the coastal city of Tipaza, 50 kilometres west of the capital Algiers, for planning to carry out attacks on security forces, according to Reuters.

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Algerian newspaper Ennahar quoted unnamed security sources saying that the cell was based in the village of Ain Taggourait and had plotted attacks in Algiers and had trained in a nearby forest using homemade weapons.

Around 35,000 active militants were believed to operate at the height of the civil war in the 1990s but have since dropped to between 800 to 1,000 militants who mostly operate in remote areas.

Remnants of Al-Qaeda brigades and the newer Daesh cells exist in the country now. They have tried to recruit people and carry out targeted attacks on mainly security forces and bases.

Following the 1990s war, Algeria fought several armed groups in a bloody conflict that ended when many militants accepted a reconciliation deal.

In 2014, Algerian Special Forces killed the leader of the local branch of Daesh, Abdelmalek Gouri, who was behind the kidnapping and beheading of French tourist Herve Gourdel in September 2014.