ALGIERS, Algerian army troops on Tuesday 28/2/2017 killed nine Islamist militants in an operation conducted in a mountainous region east of the capital that was once a bastion of Al-Qaeda militants.
According to a statement from Defence Ministry, the troops recovered Kalashnikovs, rifles and ammunition in the raid.
The army operation in Azeffoun, in the Tizi Ouzou region, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Algiers, came a day after a militant suicide bomber was shot trying to detonate his explosive belt near a police station in the northeastern city of Constantine.
However, militants’ attacks and bombings have lessened in Algeria since the end of the North African country's 1990s war against armed Islamists in which more than 200,000 people died.
But Al-Qaeda's North Africa branch, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and small units of Islamic State-allied militants are still active, mostly in remote mountains Tizi Ouzou and the desert south near the country's frontiers. These areas were safe havens for or commanders of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in 1990s.
