An Al Qaeda group has claimed responsibility for killing eight paramilitary gendarmes in an ambush in eastern Algeria last week. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said in a statement posted late on Sunday on a website that it had seized the gendarmes’ weapons, bullet-proof vests and night binoculars. “The operation came as revenge for the killing of our brothers in the recent clashes in the southern region, so the apostates know that they will pay a dear price for every martyr of ours that falls,” said the Arabic-language statement. The Feb 7 ambush was the deadliest attack in Algeria since Dec 11 when 37 people, including 17 United Nations staff, were killed in a double suicide bombing in the capital Algiers. The attack on the gendarmes occurred in the village of Draa Argayen in the desert province of El Oued, about 500 km southeast of Algiers.