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| Africa: North |
| Over 1,000 Extremists Still Hiding in Algeria |
| 2005-09-08 |
| Algeriaâs Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has said some 1,000 armed Muslim fundamentalists are still at large in the country, long wracked by an insurgency, ahead of a referendum later this month on a national peace plan. During talks Tuesday with managing editors of Algerian newspapers, Ouyahia answered a question regarding âthe number of terroristsâ in arms by saying there were âabout 1,000,â the daily LâExpression reported yesterday. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Aug. 14 announced a referendum to be held Sept. 29 in the troubled North African country on a âproposed charter for peace and reconciliationâ aimed at âbringing an end to the bloodshed.â Under this charter, authorities would end legal proceedings against extremists âwho have already halted their armed activity and surrendered to the authorities,â Bouteflika said. Ouyahia told newspaper chiefs that he was expecting â200, 300 or moreâ guerrilla fighters to turn themselves in under the plan. âThe most important thing is to bring down their numbers. We donât have any illusions, they wonât all come out of the maquis,â he said, according to the report on the meeting. The maquis consists usually of arid highlands or scrubland across northern Algeria, where fundamentalist groups bent on establishing an Islamist state and overthrowing the secular regime have hidden out in ever dwindling numbers since launching a bloody campaign characterized by bombings and massacres in the early 1990s. The project to go to a referendum would not be the first of its kind and Bouteflika stressed that any end to legal action excluded âthose involved in mass massacres, rapes and bomb attacks in public places.â For the past two years, Algerian defense and security officials have repeatedly asserted that remaining armed extremist groups have all but been wiped out, either by troops or by internal feuds and fighting, while thousands turned themselves in under a 1999 amnesty. At its height, the low-level war that erupted in 1992 is officially estimated to have claimed 150,000 lives, left thousands wounded, hundreds of civilians vanished and unaccounted for and done more than $20 billion worth of damage to infrastructure and property. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 1,000 sounds about right - it tracks with GSPC losses and debunks the smaller 200-400 figures that have been thrown around elsewhere. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-09-08 00:30 |