Algeria ex-army chief Lamari dies

Former Algerian army chief Mohamed Lamari, who was long considered one of the country's most influential figures and led a fierce crackdown against Islamist groups in the 1990s, died Monday aged 73.

"He was a great leader of the National Popular Army," ruling party spokesman Kassa Aissi told AFP. Lamari died of heart failure in Biskra, 420 kilometres (260 miles) south of Algiers.

A former officer in the French colonial army, he deserted in 1961 to join the independence struggle.

Three decades later, the Moscow-trained general was named army chief to take over the fight against Islamic extremists.

Known as an "eradicationist" who rejected dialogue with Algeria's hardline Islamists, he led an elite anti-terrorism unit during much of a civil war estimated to have claimed up to 200,000 lives between 1991 and 2002.

He resigned from his position three months after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's election, in a move observers interpreted as a drive to curb the army's dominance over Algeria's political affairs.