Algeria claims five jihadists killed in hunt for French tourist’s killers
Algerian soldiers have killed five jihadi gunmen during the hunt for the killers of French tourist Hervé Gourdel, the defence ministry and army announced on Friday. Officials say they have identified the five men involved in Gourdel’s beheading last month.
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Three alleged jihadis were killed and two Kalashnikovs and a semi-automatic rifle seized on Friday near Bouria, 120 kilometres east of Algiers, the ministry said.
Another was killed in a raid in the Tiaret region, south-west of Algiers, on Thursday, and a fifth was killed in the same area on Friday.
On Thursday the army announced that it had found and destroyed a camp that had been used by Gourdel’s kidnappers in the Djurdjura mountains.
Video footage passed to national television showed a camp fire still smoking and the military, who say they found a mobile phone, batteries and explosives at the site, claim the jihadis had fled shortly before their arrival.
The Al-Watan newspaper reported this week that the army had identified five individuals thought to be behind Gourdel’s murder.
They are believed to be aged between 20 and 54 and to have originally come from Bouira and the coastal town of Boumerdès.
Gourdel was kidnapped by Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate), a group that recently split from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to declare allegiance to the Islamic State armed group that has seized parts of Iraq and Syria.
The army believes it has identified his executioner as a man in his 50s who fought in Islamist groups during Algeria’s 1990s civil war.
Gourdel’s body has still not been found.
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