Posted on 07/21/2007 3:30:54 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
ALGIERS (AFP) - A week-long offensive by Algerian special forces in a mountainous area east of Algiers has killed between eight and 11 Islamist militants, security sources said on Saturday.
The soldiers, who include paratroopers, are tracking a group of around 100 militants in the Akfadou mountains, 160 kilometres (100 miles) east of Algiers in the Kabylie region, the sources said.
The inhospitable area has also been bombarded heavily by artillery and by aircraft, residents told AFP.
The operation follows a raid last week on an army barracks in the Yakouren forest in the same region and a suicide bomb attack on another at Lakhdaria which killed 10 soldiers and injured 35.
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which has pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and renamed itself the Al-Qaeda Movement in the Islamic Countries of the Maghreb, has claimed responsibility.
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