The Algerian security forces have arrested seven men, mainly Algerians and Moroccans, who are suspected of supporting Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, press reports said Monday. The seven are accused of providing logistical and financial support to the northwest African wing of the armed extremist group and were detained in the Saharan south of Algeria, the reports said, without saying when.
According to the Arabic-language daily El-Chourouk, agents in the centre for research and investigation in the Tamanrasset district, 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) south of Algiers, identified “a dormant support cell in the Abelsa region and put an end to their activities”. Abelsa is some 170 kilometres west of Tamanrasset. The security forces seized computers, communications equipment and large amounts of foreign currency, according to the other major Arabic-language daily, El-Khabar.
El-Khabar said, citing security sources, that the AQIM support group was led by a Malian known as Abou Al-Youcef El-Hassan, whose real name is Jakwa Ibrahim Obraham, aged 42. AQIM emerged early in 2007 from the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and pledged its allegiance to Osama bin Laden, the head of the Al-Qaeda network who was killed by US covert troops overnight in Pakistan.
