ELIMINATED
- Full name: N/a
- Pseudonym: Fermache, Abu Salmah, Mekni
- Alternatives: Bey al-Akrouf
- Location: Tunisia, fmr Algeria
- Affiliation: Brigade of Uqba Bin Nafa’a [KUIN], Base Organization in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM], fmr Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat [GSPC], fmr Armed Islamic Group [GIA]
Akrouf el-Bey was a shadowy jihadi from Algeria’s Bordj Menaïel province. He first joined the Armed Islamic Group [GIA; Groupe Islamique Armé] in 1994.1 In late 1990s, Bey became a member of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat [GSPC; Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat]. By the early 2000s, he had become the commander of a cell in the Timezrit area by the early 2000s.2
Bey continued to rise through the ranks as the GSPC evolved into the Base Organization in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM; Tanzim al-Qa’ida fi-Bilad al-Mahgreb al-Islami]. By the late 2000s, he served as a senior leader in the group’s branch in the Kabylie region; the infamous Ansar Brigade. Bey was linked to many of the branch’s high-profile attacks, including the August 2008 suicide car bombing of the Issers police academy in which more than forty people were killed.3
Following the elimination of predecessor Ali Ben Touati in 2008, the AQIM designated Bey to head the Ansar Brigade in the spring of 2009.4 Following his appointment, he immediately stepped up the branch’s attacks in the Boumerdès and Tizi Ouzou provinces.5 In June 2009, Bey personally participated in the ambush of a convoy of the Algerian ministry of education in Timezrit. Ten people were killed in the attack.6 At the same time, he provided support to AQIM leader Abdelmalik Droukdel’s drive to restructure of the organization. Bey oversaw the merger of AQIM’s Ansar and Nour branches.7
In the early 2010s, Bey’s AQIM branch suffered many setbacks in the face of the Algerian government’s intense crackdown on jihadi activity in the country. In 2012 alone, he lost more than fifty of his men in operations by the security forces.8 His deputy was eliminated in early December 2012.9 In September 2013, Bey lost another close associate in an encounter with the authorities.10
In the meanwhile, Bey had been sentenced to death in two separate court cases in April and December 2010.11 In June 2012, a judge again gave him the death penalty at the conclusion of another trial.12 Bey received a fourth death sentence for his role in the Issers bombing in Februari 2014.13 Later that year, it was falsely rumored that he had been unknowingly killed by security forces in 2012.14
From 2013 onwards, Bey became increasingly involved in the AQIM’s Tunisian affiliate; the Brigade of Uqba Bin Nafa’a [KUIN; Katibat Uqba Ibn Nafaâ].15 By 2016, he had joined the KUIN to serve as one of its leaders.16 Bey was designated to be KUIN’s top leader in 2017.17 He was linked to a series of the group’s attacks against Tunisian security forces in the highlands of the Jendouba, Kasserine and Kef governorates.18 The authorities eventually caught up with Bey. He and two senior associates were eliminated when security forces intercepted them as they were traveling to Mount Ouergha on Sep. 02, 2019.19 Bey was in his fifties at the time of his death.20
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