Troops Kill Militant Leader, Army Says

Troops killed one of North Africa’s most wanted Islamic militants, who had sought to link his bloody insurgent movement in Algeria to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network, the military said.

The death of Nabil Sahraoui, head of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, marked a major victory for Algerian government efforts to suppress Islamic militant violence and left his armed organization with no clear leader.

Sahraoui and three of his lieutenants were killed in a “vast anti-terrorist operation” in the Kabylie region east of the capital, Algiers, the military said.