North African al-Qaida branch says top figure killed in ambush near home base in Algeria
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The North African affiliate of al-Qaida says one of its leading figures has been killed in an ambush by Algerian soldiers.
Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, says that Abu al-Hassan Rachid al-Bulaydi, head of the Sharia Committee, was killed on Friday "as a result of an insidious ambush by the apostates," according to a statement translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.
The statement said he was killed in the Tizi Ouzou region east of Algiers.
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The Algerian Defense Ministry said two "dangerous terrorists" had been killed Friday in another part of Tizi Ouzou, and it wasn't clear whether al-Bulaydi was one of the two.
AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel, is thought to be holed up in the mountainous Tizi Ouzou region. AQIM is blamed for sporadic attacks on soldiers.