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LequteMan
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Algerian troops have discovered a huge cache of weapons near its border with Libya, including surface-to-air missiles, rockets and land mines, an Algerian security source said on Thursday.
The source said the weapons found in Illizi in southern Algeria likely belonged to militants. They included 100 anti-aircraft missiles and hundreds of anti-helicopter rockets, land mines and rocket-propelled grenades.
“It is an arsenal of war," the source said.
The area is about 200 Km from the Amenas gas plant, which was attacked in January by Islamist militants in an assault launched from inside Libya that killed nearly 40 foreign contractors.
That attack and Libya's chaos have left energy companies wary over security in North Africa, where some U.S. oil majors in particular have begun to scale back.
BP and Norway's Statoil are still assessing whether to send foreign workers back to Amenas.
As well as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, other militant groups in North Africa include Ansar al-Sharia both in Tunisia and Libya, and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa or MUJWA.
(Reuters/NAN)
