Algerian security forces have killed the spiritual leader of a major terror group in the country, local media reported on Wednesday.

Ahmed Zarabib, head of the Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), was killed during an army offensive on Jan. 17 in mountains near Toudja, 240 km east of the capital, Algiers. The death was confirmed on the group's website on Tuesday.

Zarabib, 43, was the spiritual leader and one of the founders of GSPC. The GSPC has been involved in acts of violence for more than a decade in Algeria, and has been blamed for several hundred cases of bloody terrorist attacks, including the kidnapping of more than 30 travelers from Western countries in the Sahara desert region in southern Algeria in 2003.

The GSPC, which is closely linked to the al-Qaida terror network, is considered to be the only structured armed insurgency movement remaining in Algeria at present.

Since the 1990s, the GSPC and other Islamic extremist groups have frequently attacked armies, police officers, government departments as well as civilians in Algeria, leaving an estimated 150,000 dead.

In recent years, the Algerian government has adopted a conciliatory political policy, while carrying out numerous military crackdowns on the extremist groups, in a bid to improve the security of the country.

However, the GSPC, along with some other terror groups, refuses to disarm, and continues to fight against the government in remote mountains and forest regions.

Source: Xinhua