AQIM Smuggler Convey Captured

The capture of AQIM Smugglers as described below was likely a routine return trip form Europe, bringing drug money, a variety of miscellaneous arms picked up in Libya, but the money may be bribe money from Gaddafi being delivered.....to a friendly government

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ALGIERS (Xinhua) -- Algerian army forces killed eight militants pertaining to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the border area and seized some arms smuggled from Libya, a local newspaper reported Thursday.

Arabic-language daily El Khabar quoted a security source as saying that the army carried out the hours-long military operation Sunday night in Bordj Houine, a desert area on the border with Niger and Libya, killing eight militants and arresting four others, including a Libyan national.

The army forces recouped a load of weapons smuggled from Libya, including anti-tank missile launchers, middle-sized missiles, ammunition and explosives, and modern wireless devices, the source said, specifying that there were no anti-crafts missiles among the seized weapons.

They also destroyed several vehicles of the militants, and seized a sum of 1 million U.S. dollars and some documents pertaining to the AQIM, according to the source.

Meanwhile, the newspaper quoted another security source as saying that Algeria, Mauritania, Niger and Mali have established a joint security panel composed by arm experts and detectives, and tasked it with following up the smuggled weapons from Libya

The Rest @ Philstar