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Algerian Islamic Leader Killed
WASHINGTON & BERLIN, Feb 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A leading figure in Algeria's banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was shot dead on Sunday outside his home in Souk Ahras in northeastern Algeria, the group's exiled leadership announced here.
Ali Merad was a former commander in the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), the armed wing of the FIS.
He had been elected a member of the Algerian parliament in the 1991 election, won by the FIS but later cancelled by the government, a move which triggered the ongoing civil unrest across the country.
Merad was gunned down by a "local militia leader known as Essayd, who went to [Merad's] home and called to him before shooting him from a close range," according to the statement issued by the FIS leadership, adding that the suspect was in police custody.
The slaying took place in Souk Ahras, located some 600 kilometers (370 miles) east of the capital Algiers.
The FIS called the killing a "cowardly act that is part of a plan by the enemies of peace and stability in the country, who wish to confuse the situation in order to prolong the crisis and further their own dubious interests."
The FIS remains outlawed, but its armed wing, the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), benefited from a blanket amnesty last year.
More than 100,000 people - civilians, fighters and security forces - have lost their lives in the conflict.
The BBC reports that the conduct of the Algerian army in the conflict has come under
scrutiny after recent revelations by a former Algerian military officer, Habib Souaidia, who now lives in France.
In a book entitled "The Dirty War," he says Algerian troops disguised as Islamic activists participated in massacres of civilians during the 1990s, as well as torturing Islamists to death.
The Algerian Government has so far resisted demands by human-rights activists for a full public inquiry.
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