AQIM Kidnaps and Murders Mayor Bouchibane of Timezrit, East of Algiers, Algeria

This is an area very near al AQIM Stronghold in the Tizi Ouzou area. I strongly suspect AQIM in this act. AQIM and Shabaab, both al Qaueda Franchises are very competitive. If you chart their attacks in the last two years, you will find one will plan and carry out an attack in response to the news of an attack by the other.

-Shimron Issachar

ALGIERS (AFP) — Armed Islamists have assassinated the mayor of a northern Algerian town after kidnapping him, the interior ministry said in a statement Thursday.

Security forces found the body of Timezrit mayor Fateh Bouchibane along with a charred vehicle belonging to the local government, the ministry said in a statement reported by the APS news service.

Bouchibane was kidnapped late Wednesday by an unspecified armed Islamist group at an intersection in Tifra, some 263 kilometres (163 miles) east of Algiers, it said.

In recent months, Algeria has witnessed a wave of attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda's north African offshoot, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

The Rest @ AFP