Algerian army kills leading Qaeda figure - APS

ALGIERS, Apr 26 (Reuters) Algerian army soldiers shot dead the coordinator and second-in-command of Al Qaeda's North African branch today, official news agency APS reported, quoting security sources.

Samir Moussaab, whose real name is Samir Saioud, was killed during a skirmish with an army patrol in the Boumerdes region around 50 kilometres east of Algiers, APS said.

He was tracked down using information gathered from ex-members of the group pardoned under an amnesty for Islamist rebels.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is led by Abdelmalek Droudkel, whose predecessor Nabil Sahraoui was killed by the army in 2003.

The group, which changed its name from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) this year, claimed responsibility for twin bombings in the capital Algiers that killed 33 people on April 11.

The GSPC began as an offshoot of another group that was waging an armed revolt against the government to establish an Islamic state.

The rebellion began in 1992 after the then military-backed authorities, fearing an Iran-style revolution, scrapped a parliamentary election an Islamist political party was set to win. Up to 2,00,000 people were killed in the ensuing bloodshed.

Residents said the Algiers attacks this month were the country's first suicide bombings and heightened fears the north African oil exporting country was slipping back into violence.

The GSPC said it was behind an attack in December near Algiers that killed an Algerian and wounded nine people including four Britons and an American.

It also claimed responsibility for an attack on March 3 on a bus carrying workers for a Russian gas pipeline construction firm that killed three Algerians and a Russian.

Government forces have stepped up assaults on the group's strongholds in the Kabylie region east of Algiers, hoping to wipe out what remains of it after an amnesty for Islamist rebels expired.

REUTERS RJ BST0033