Al Qaeda members in the Islamic Maghreb An Algerian soldier was killed and another was injured on Thursday in east Algeria by unidentified gunmen suspected to belong to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb group (AQIM), Algerian security sources told Arabstoday. The two soldiers were setting up a checkpoint in the Azkar area of Bejaya province, 200km to the east of Algiers. The soldiers were suddenly shot by a group of militants, leaving one dead and another injured before they ran away. The injured soldier was sent to a local hospital for treatment.
The Algerian army has been busy hunting down extremist Islamists in the mountainous region of east Algeria for the last two months, as the Algerian government vowed to uproot all the militant Islamist groups operating in the country.