Algeria army kills 109 ‘terrorists,’ arrests 36 in 2015: ministry

The Algerian army killed a total of 109 “terrorists,” the term used by the government for armed Islamist fighters, and arrested another 36 in 2015, a defence ministry toll published Monday said.

Troops also seized explosives, assault rifles, rocket launchers as well as “a large amount of all sorts of munitions, including 182 improvised bombs, 132 mines and five rockets,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry gave no figure for the military’s losses in the same period.

A dozen soldiers were killed in mid-July in an ambush laid by jihadists southwest of Algiers.

Algeria suffered a war in the 1990s between the government and Islamists that killed 200,000 people. Armed groups remain active in the centre and east of the country.