ALGIERS, (Reuters) – Al Qaeda insurgents killed 11 Algerian paramilitary police in a desert ambush yesterday, a newspaper and a security source said, in the deadliest attack the group has mounted so deep in the Sahara.
The attack could be a sign that the militants are becoming a more potent force in the Sahara desert, a vast and thinly-policed region which security experts say al Qaeda wants to turn into a new battleground.
A convoy of gendarmes, or paramilitary police, was attacked by insurgents at dawn in an ambush in the Tamanrasset region, near Algeria’s border with Mali, Algeria’s El Watan newspaper reported on its Internet site www.elwatan.dz.
There was no official confirmation of the report, but a government security source, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters: “I can confirm the information which was given on the 11 gendarmes.”
The scene of the ambush is not close to any of energy exporter Algeria’s major oil and gas fields.
