Algeria: Army kills Abdelmalek Gouri, leader of Jund al-Khilafah islamist group
In a late night operation, Algeria’s army killed the leader of an Islamic State splinter group blamed for the kidnapping and beheading of a French hiker, the Ministry of Defense said Tuesday.
It took three months for about 3,000 Algerian soldiers to comb the mountainous Kabylie region that has long been a hotbed for militant groups, but in the end they caught up with Abdelmalek Gouri.
The operation demonstrates Algeria’s continuing skill at counterterrorism since its decade-long battle against an Islamic insurgency in the 1990s that has made it a close U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaeda.
Gouri, who joined the ranks of the radical Islamists nearly 20 years ago, was a top al-Qaeda commander in Algeria until he split off and formed his own group, Jund al-Khilafah (Soldiers of the Caliphate), and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in Syria.