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Algiers police bust terrorist group affiliated with Daesh
[Iran Press TV] Algerian police have broken up a ISIS terrorist cell led by a former al-Qaeda commander convicted in La Belle France more than a decade ago for planning an attempted bombing in Strasbourg, a security source said on Wednesday.Mohammed Yacine Aknouche, 43, was once a Europe-based affiliate of Algeria's Islamic Armed Group (GIA), and was sentenced in absentia by a French court in 2004 to eight years prison, said the source, who asked not to be named. The source told Rooters that Algerian forces captured Aknouche this week near Tipaza, a coastal city 50 km west of the capital Algiers where officials charge he had been planning to carry out attacks on security forces. It was not clear when he had returned to Algeria. Militant attacks and bombings are rarer in Algeria since the North African country ended its decades-long 1990s war with armed Lions of Islam in which 200,000 people died. But remnants of al Qaeda brigades remain active and ISIS has been trying to recruit more people. The Algerian newspaper Ennahar quoted unnamed security sources as saying the cell was based in the village of Ain Taggourait and had plotted attacks in Algiers. Aknouche's cell, it said, had trained in a nearby forest using homemade weapons. Posted by: Fred 2017-07-27 |
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