ALGIERS: Algerian soldiers shot dead three armed Islamists southeast of the capital yesterday, a defence ministry statement said.
It said special forces killed the three militants in the Biskra region, 400km from Algiers, and that guns and ammunition were recovered.
On Monday, army chief of staff and Deputy Defence Minister Ahmed Gaid Salah said Algeria was determined to prevent a resurgence of the “terrorism” that plagued the country in the 1990s.
Also on Monday, the defence ministry said a “criminal group” of 12 Sudanese and eight Chadians had been arrested on the border with Niger. Islamist militants remain active in several areas of Algeria more than a decade after the end of the country’s devastating 1992-2002 civil war.
Iranian woman faces death
DUBAI: An Iranian woman convicted of murdering an alleged rapist as a teenager is set to be hanged today unless she wins forgiveness from the victim’s relatives, an Iranian news agency reported yesterday.
Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was sentenced to death for stabbing dead a man seven years ago who she says tried to rape her. She has been detained since her arrest and repeated appeals have failed.
Jabbari said she acted in self defence, but Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentence.
Her case has prompted an international outcry, with the United States and European Union demanding her sentence be repealed. The semi-official Mehr News said a 10-day deadline issued for the woman to try to win forgiveness from the victim’s relatives was due to expire today morning.
Agencies
