The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) lost yesterday one of its pillars. The terrorist was killed in the Forest Sidi Bounab (west of Tizi Ouzou) by an army unit specialised in the fight against terrorism. The man in question is GSPC’s judge Tahar Mouassi known as “Abu Yaakub”. Army sources from the area where Abu Yaakub died said that the paratrooper brigade set up an ambush to the terrorist early in the morning as they were tipped that he usually goes to a specific place in Sidi Bounab forest. The hiding place was found to be the Archives of the GSPC. The sources, who qualified the archives as very important as they include documents about the armed organisation men’s conflicts, added that the army forces picked up the terrorist’s arm. A repentant gave the army forces the information about the road Abu Yaakub used to take to the hiding place. The terrorist, who always insisted on going alone to the Archives’ place, had been under surveillance for many days before the ambush.
Abu Yaakub joined terrorist groups in 1994. He was a Mufti officer in the second region. When Nabil Sahrawi known as (Mustafa Abu Brahim) became leader of the organisation as a replacement for Hassan Hattab (Abu Hamza) in 2003, he appointed him as a judge of the Group. According to several repentant witnesses, the appointing Mouassi at the top of the council was imposed and caused a regional conflict about the position, which is currently hold by organisationÂ’s chief Abdelmalek Droukdal called Abu Musaab. According to the same source, the elements of the fifth region (East) was outraged because elements coming from Eastern wilayas have been marginalised and alienated from important positions in the Notables Council.