Algeria: Leader of group that beheaded French hiker is killed

  The Algerian military has killed the leader of an Algerian terror group that beheaded FrenchhikHerve Gourdel earlier this year, the state-run Algeria Press Service reported Tuesday. 

Gouri Abdelmalek, leader of Jund al Khilafa, and two other militants were killed in the Algerian city of Isser after the military set an unspecified "trap," for them, APS reported Tuesday, citing Algeria's defense ministry.

 

The report of Abdelmalek's death comes roughly three months after Jund al Khilafa -- a small Islamist group formerly linked to al Qaeda -- published a video showing the beheading of Gourdel in what the group said was a display of support to al Qaeda's rival ISIS.

Gourdel, 55, was hiking in central Algeria's Djudjura National Park when he was abducted in September. Jund al Khilafa, having just declared allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), then published a video of Gourdel's beheading on September 24.