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Report: Qaida Financier among Seven Killed in Algeria
[An Nahar] The Algerian army has identified one of seven armed Islamists killed east of the capital earlier this month as a key financier of the local affiliate of al-Qaeda, the El Watan newspaper reported on Saturday.

Izza Rezki, also known as Abou Djaffar, took up arms against the government in 1994, early in Algeria's devastating civil war, and was a key aide of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) leader Abdelmalik Droukdel
... aka Abdel Wadoud, was a regional leader of the GSPC for several years before becoming the group's supremo in 2004 following the death of then-leader Nabil Sahraoui. Under Abdel Wadoud's leadership the GSPC has sought to develop itself from a largely domestic entity into a larger player on the international terror stage. In September 2006 it was announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al-Qaeda and in January 2007 the group officially changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb....
, the paper said.

He and his comrades were killed on Tuesday in a major operation that is still underway in the corpse-littered Boumerdes region, 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Algiers. A total of nine suspected faceless myrmidons have been killed in the offensive.

Rezki's reported killing follows those of AQIM front man Salah Gasmi southeast of Algiers last month and of its commander for the mountainous Kabylie region, Rabah Makhfi, alias Cheikh Nacer, in Bejaia province, east of the capital, in November.

AQIM has remained active in corpse-littered Boumerdes and neighboring Kabylie despite frequent raids by the army to curtail its activities.

Posted by: Fred 2013-01-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=359468