(VOVworld) - A leading figure of the North African affiliate of al-Qaeda was killed this week in an ambush by Algerian soldiers.

Algerian army troops in the mountainous eastern Tizi Ouzou region. (AFP archive photo/ Farouk Batiche)

The Algerian Defense Ministry said that two “dangerous terrorists” had been killed last Friday afternoon in the northeast of the Tizi Ouzou region but didn’t identify them. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, said that Abu al-Hassan Rachid al-Bulaydi, head of the Sharia Committee, was killed on Friday by Algerian soldiers.
AQIM grew out of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and changed its name when it joined the al-Qaeda network in 2007 under the leadership of Abdelmalek Droukdel.