Algerian security services have arrested a large number of armed terrorists in the country’s northeastern Tebessa region as they were preparing to cross into neighbouring Libya, newspapers reported on Sunday.

• They said the unspecified number of terrorists, armed with Kalashnikovs, were fleeing from the town of Khenchela, 540 kilometres east of Algiers, where security forces had them surrounded for several days.

• With the protracted conflict in Libya, arms’ trafficking has flourished along the porous 1,000-kilometre border between the two countries.

• Around 800 armed Islamists are active in Algeria, including 210 members of the so-called “Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” (AQIM), according to Mr Badredine Messaoudi, a member of the commission charged with implementing the charter of peace and national reconciliation, quoted by a local daily newspaper.

• Around 600 other armed Islamists are operating in southern Algeria, he added.

• The charter offers an amnesty “under certain conditions” to armed Islamists who surrender to the authorities.

• Since it came into force in March 2006, more than 3,200 of them have laid down their weapons and gave themselves up, he said.