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7 Algerian coppers iced in GSPC ambush
ARMED Islamic extremists last night killed seven Algerian gendarmes and injured three others in an ambush at Toudja in the north-eastern Kabylie region, security officials said. About 50 members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) took part in the attack on a mountain road about 30 kilometres west of the Petite Kabylie town of Bejaia, a security source said. They ambushed three vehicles in which the paramilitary police officers were patrolling at around 10.30am, made the attack, seized seven firearms and drove off with their vehicles.The GSPC, led by Hassan Hattab, has stepped up its operations in the Kabylie region of Algeria in the past two weeks, after a period of relative calm around the end of the year, targeting mainly the security forces. It is held by Washington to have links with al-Qaeda and it is the best organised of the extremist groups at war with Algeriaâs secular government, with an estimated 400 to 500 members, according to the Algerian army. The GSPC was also blamed for an bomb attack in which two French construction workers and their Algerian police escort escaped largely unscathed in the Lakhadaria region early today. Two explosive charges were detonated from a distance in an attack on a road convoy in a wooded mountain area 70 kilometres south-east of Algiers. One of the Algerian gendarmes was slightly injured in the blasts, which damaged the targeted vehicles in the convoy, an informed source said. The French nationals, who were not named, are workers at a dam building site in a part of the Atlas mountains frequented by armed guerrillas of the Salafist Group. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-02-13 |
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