Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — Algeria has captured a large group of suspected members of Al
Qaida.

Algerian security sources said about 200 operatives of Al Qaida
Organization in the Islamic Maghreb were captured after a military operation
near the border with Libya.

The sources said the AQIM operatives were headed to Libya to acquire weapons from the arsenal of the late Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

“All of the terrorists carried weapons and eventually surrendered,” a
security source said.

Algeria has sought to stop the flow of weapons to AQIM from Libya. In 2012, Algerian troops helped find a huge weapons cache believed to have been smuggled by Al Qaida from Libya.

Officials reported a major increase in the presence of Al Qaida in
Algeria. Badredine Messaoudi, a member of Algeria’s national reconciliation commission, said 800 Islamist fighters were operating in Algeria, 210 of them from AQIM.

In an interview with the Algerian daily An Nahar, Messaoudi said 590 of
the Islamist fighters were operating in the southern Sahara Desert near the
border with Mali. He said more than 3,200 Islamists surrendered to
authorities under an amnesty accord in 2006.

  Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, Algeria captures 200 Al Qaida operatives near Libyan border, Badredine Messaoudi, Mali border, Sahara Desert, smuggling weapons from Libya