Algerian security forces shot dead a man of 25 wearing a belt carrying explosives as he prepared a suicide bombing against the coast guard in the town of Dellys, several newspapers reported on Wednesday.
The young man, who was killed on Monday, was identified as Omar Toudji, alias Abou Abderrahmane, according to security sources quoted by the Liberte and El Watan dailies.
A member of the Al Ansar cell of al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Toudji joined the armed Muslim fundamentalist guerrillas in 2004, according to several papers.
Dellys lies on the Mediterranean coast about 100km east of Algiers.
In September 2007 15 coastguards and one civilian were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on a naval barracks there, medical sources said at the time. More than 20 people were injured.
AQIM claimed responsibility for that attack.
AQIM has in the past two years emerged from the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and extended its operations beyond Algeria’s borders into other Saharan and sub-Saharan nations, which have joined forces to combat it. — Sapa-AFP