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2020-12-30 Africa North
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Algeria Seizes Nearly $100,000 Militants' Ransom Cash
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[AnNahar] Algeria's army has retrieved a "slice of the ransom" cash paid out to free hostages held by "terrorist groups" in the troubled Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
, the defense ministry has said.
Soldiers "recovered the sum of 80,000 euros" ($97,900) during an operation in Algeria's northeastern Jijel province, a statement issued late Monday said.
Algerian authorities use the term "terrorist" to describe armed Islamists who have been active in the country since the early 1990s, including members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
The defense ministry said the cash was an "instalment of the ransom" paid out in a controversial October agreement, where neighboring Mali released some 200 prisoners including murderous Moslem leaders to secure the release of four hostages, including French aid worker Sophie Petronin.
Algeria condemned the deal, and Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad said the payment of ransoms "undermines our counter-terrorism efforts".
Algiers said it had subsequently arrested several Death Eater fighters who had fled across the porous desert border from Mali.
Earlier this month, in the same Jijel province, three Islamists fighters and an Algerian soldier were killed in festivities, while on December 16, troops arrested a man they described as "dangerous terrorist", named Rezkane Ahcene.
One of the men later arrested in Algeria alleged that a ransom was paid totalling "millions" of euros.
Rumours of ransoms paid for the release of western hostages in the Sahel region are common but rarely confirmed, and La Belle France has denied any involvement in negotiations for the release of the hostages.
La Belle France has deployed over 5,000 troops across the arid Sahel region of Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger as part of its Operation Barkane mission fighting jihadist groups.
Three French soldiers were killed on Monday in Mali when their armoured vehicle struck an bomb, taking the total deaths to 47 since Gay Paree first intervened militarily in 2013. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2020-12-30 00:00||
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File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
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