Algerian Muslim Rebel Chief Reportedly Slain

The young leader of Algeria’s most ruthless Islamic terrorist militia has been cornered and killed, along with as many as 100 of his followers, in a major army assault on ancient tunnels where the extremists were hiding, newspapers in Algiers reported Thursday.

There was no official announcement to confirm the reported death of Antar Zouabri, an Islamic zealot in his 20s who once said that anyone who disagreed with him deserved death. But the appearance of the reports in the heavily censored Algerian media indicated that they had the sanction of the government. Western news services also quoted sources among both the militants and the security forces saying he was dead.

“He was killed last Tuesday with other members of the armed group,” said a security source quoted by Reuters news agency.

If the army has indeed killed Zouabri, the leader of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) blamed for a major portion of the 60,000 violent deaths in Algeria since 1992, it would represent a significant coup for the Algerian security forces.

Combined with the government’s surprise release from prison last week of Abassi Madani, an important Islamic leader, the death of the man who was arguably the government’s most vicious opponent might also provide an opening for those who advocate negotiations to end the country’s prolonged agony.

A Western diplomat in Algiers said he did not know what the effect of Zouabri’s death would be if true. “I don’t think it’s going to end armed groups’ activities in Algeria, but they may have put out of action a large group” of the militants at least temporarily, he said.

He also noted that Zouabri had seemed under pressure recently even within his organization for ruthless tactics to the point that several factions had split off and denounced him. “Even within the GIA he was a controversial figure, and in the Islamic movement broadly he was rejected,” the diplomat said. “They [other Islamic groups] said he was a barbarian and a terrorist.”

Algerian newspapers had been reporting since Monday a major military operation in the region around the town of Tipasa, about 40 miles southwest of Algiers, an area where the GIA has been especially active.

Newspapers gave differing accounts of how the assault began. One report said authorities were tipped off to the location of a GIA base by one of its fighters forced to witness the killing of a close relative. Another report said a woman escaped and alerted authorities after being raped by GIA militants. The newspaper El Watan, normally the best-informed paper in the capital on security matters, said about 100 militants had been killed in the operation and at least 300 others had surrendered.

The newspaper Al Khabar in Algiers said troops used bulldozers to root out the rebels and in the process uncovered a mass grave.

Government forces and Islamic extremists have been locked in a brutal fight since the army intervened in January 1992 to abort elections that would have brought Madani’s Islamic Salvation Front to power on a promise to create an Islamic state in the North African country of 29 million people.

The GIA, which issued its first communique in January 1992, soon emerged at the fighting’s forefront. The group targeted for death intellectuals, journalists, foreigners and anyone suspected of loyalty to the government or of being insufficiently obeisant to the group’s extreme interpretations of Islam.

Zouabri, a shoemaker’s son believed to have been 27 or 28 years old, began signing leaflets as the group’s leader late last year after the death in shadowy circumstances of his predecessor, Djamel Zitouni. Zouabri’s statements from the start were marked by a chilling certitude about his cause.

“We have the means and the men to punish those who are not on our side,” he boasted in one leaflet posted this year to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “Except for those who are with me, all others are apostates and merit death.”

He was the eighth leader of the group in five years, and the government had been offering $8,000 for his capture or death.

Although it is difficult in Algeria’s tightly controlled environment to get an accurate picture of public opinion, diplomats and political analysts there believe that the brutal tactics used by the GIA and other factions have eroded their support.

The government managed last month to hold the country’s first parliamentary election since the aborted 1992 vote.

But the election and the release of Madani did not abate the carnage; an estimated 400 people have been slaughtered or killed in bombings since the vote was held.

This week, President Liamine Zeroual announced municipal elections for October, the last cog in his gradual program to rebuild elected political institutions as a bulwark against extremists.