Algeria’s army on Friday shot dead two suspected Islamists south of the capital Algiers days after gunmen in the same region wounded four policemen, the defence ministry said.
The army killed the two, seizing two Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition and a pair of binoculars, in the Bougarra area of the Blida region, the ministry said in a statement.
“The operation is ongoing,” it added.
The shooting came as part of a manhunt after gunmen on Wednesday targeted a police patrol in the Larbaa area of the Mitidja plain, around 15km to the northeast, wounding four policemen, it said.
The large agricultural plain of Mitidja was the epicentre of fighting in the civil war that ravaged Algeria in the 1990s and was a bastion of the Islamist groups that fought security forces during the conflict.
The army killed seven suspected Islamists in May, its publication El-Djeich has said.
AFP
