During the night of Monday-Tuesday Feb. 4-5, 2013, elements of the People’s National Army (ANP) repelled an armed terrorist group that was about to break into the military barracks in Jebel Boudoukhane, in the southern province of Khenchela, Algeria, near the Tunisian border.

The terrorists used machine guns and RPGs and were dressed in military uniforms so as not to arouse suspicion. They set up a false checkpoint near the target location and intercepted the truck that supplied the military barracks with food. They took hostage the truck’s driver and loader and drove the truck to Boudoukhane barracks to try to sneak in. The soldiers, however, realized what was going on and counterattacked. One terrorist was killed and several soldiers injured in the firefight. Those attackers who managed to escape were hunted down by the military reinforcements that came from neighboring areas to comb through the surrounding mountains.

The attack on the barracks happened during a tense security atmosphere in Tunisia and the Sahel region. The Algerian-Tunisian border has in recent months been the site of several terrorist attempts, which were thwarted by the heavily-present Algerian security services. Security observers say that the attack was intended for publicity as well as to try to obtain weapons for other groups operating in the Sahel.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has several branches operating in different parts of the country. The failed attack against the military barracks in Jebel Boudoukhane was conducted by AQIM’s eastern branch, whose chief is Abdelmalek Droukdal, aka Abdelwadoud Abou Mossaab. The military barracks served as an outpost for the ANP in its fight against the myriad Islamic groups roaming Algeria’s eastern regions.