(AKI) - The leader of Al-Qaeda's North African branch has sacked its Islamic scholar or mufti, Rashid Zerami, for opposing suicide bombings in Algeria, local daily Ennahar reports. Zerami clashed over the issue with the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb's leader, Abdel Malik Droukedel, Ennahar said. The paper cited the testimony of an unnamed Al-Qaeda turncoat who is now in police custody.Besides the use of suicide bombers, Droukedel and Zerami also clashed over Al-Qaeda's recent strategy of kidnapping Algerian businessmen or their relatives to obtain a ransom, especially in the northern coastal Kabylia area. Droukedel has replaced Zerami with Abu Asim, a former leader of the hardline Algerian Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which in 2006 joined the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb. Zerami, also known as Abu al-Hasan al-Rashid headed Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb's religious committee and was in charge of armed combat.