ALGIERS – Two security guards protecting a gas pipeline
have been killed and seven others wounded in an attack by militants
southeast of the Algerian capital, local residents said Monday.
The guards, who were attacked late Sunday in at their quarters in Djebahia, 125 km southeast of Algiers, were part of an armed civilian unit protecting a gas pipeline in the Bouira region.
An “armed Islamist group” carried out the attack around 9:00 p.m. (2000 GMT), and after an hour-long firefight two guards were found dead, the residents said, citing survivors of the assault.
The attack comes nearly a fortnight after a deadly Islamist attack on a gas plant in Algeria’s southern Sahara desert, in a hostage-taking siege that ended with the deaths of almost 40, mostly foreign, captives.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the global network’s North Africa franchise, has its roots in Algeria, where it is active in the Bouira region and in neighboring Boumerdes and Tizi Ouzou, regularly carrying out attacks against military outposts there.
The January 16 kidnapping operation was claimed by a group calling itself “Signatories in Blood,” directed by former AQIM member Mokhtar Belmokhtar. – AFP
The guards, who were attacked late Sunday in at their quarters in Djebahia, 125 km southeast of Algiers, were part of an armed civilian unit protecting a gas pipeline in the Bouira region.
An “armed Islamist group” carried out the attack around 9:00 p.m. (2000 GMT), and after an hour-long firefight two guards were found dead, the residents said, citing survivors of the assault.
The attack comes nearly a fortnight after a deadly Islamist attack on a gas plant in Algeria’s southern Sahara desert, in a hostage-taking siege that ended with the deaths of almost 40, mostly foreign, captives.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the global network’s North Africa franchise, has its roots in Algeria, where it is active in the Bouira region and in neighboring Boumerdes and Tizi Ouzou, regularly carrying out attacks against military outposts there.
The January 16 kidnapping operation was claimed by a group calling itself “Signatories in Blood,” directed by former AQIM member Mokhtar Belmokhtar. – AFP
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