Algerian troops kill 'terror' chief

Algiers - Algerian soldiers have killed a "terrorist chief" during an operation in the Kabylie region some 110km east of the capital, the defence ministry announced on Monday.

"As part of the anti-terrorist struggle and acting on information received, an army detachment on Sunday eliminated a terrorist chief responsible for several crimes in the region", the ministry's Internet site reported.

It did not reveal the identity of the "terrorist", the term used by the authorities to refer to armed Islamists.

The ministry said he was killed in an ambush in a wooded area around 40km south of Tizi Ouzou.

A weapon, ammunition and mobile phones were also recovered, it said.

At least 70 Islamists have now been killed in Algeria this year, including 12 in May on the border with Mali.

Violence blamed on Islamists has declined considerably in recent years, but militants who battled the army during the civil war in the 1990s and later formed al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) still operate in the Kabylie area.