An armed group in Algeria with links to the al-Qaeda network has replaced its founding leader Hassan Hattab, accused of being weak, press reports said on Sunday.
Among Algerian Islamists that probably means that he kills the women and children with guns rather than hacking them up.
Hattab has been replaced by Nabil Sahraoui, alias Abou Ibrahim Mustapha, also a founding member of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), the Arabic-language El Khabar daily reported. Algerian newspapers in recent days have alluded to the leadership struggle, with El Khabar, citing knowledgeable sources, saying Hattab was sidelined because of a decrease in "terrorist actions" by the group, one of two still active in the north African country’s civil war.
Any possible connection to the seige on their HQ that was reported last week?
| Is being "sidelined" painful but not fatal? |
Hattab’s successor Sahraoui "has the distinction of having been the first Algerian terrorist to have recruited within his wing 15 Libyan and Tunisian people who were returning (to north Africa) from al-Qaeda training camps in Kandahar (Afghanistan)," another daily, Le Quotidien d’Oran, had reported Thursday. |