Calls for proof of al-Qaida chief's death in Mali

ALGERIA is seeking to confirm the reported killing of al-Qaida's top commander in northern Mali.

ALGERIA is seeking to confirm the reported killing of al-Qaida's top commander in northern Mali.

Chad's president announced on Friday that his troops had killed Abou Zeid days earlier, in what would be one of the worst blows to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in the seven-week-old French-led intervention.

Idriss Deby Itno claimed the AQIM commander in Mali was killed during a major battle that also left 26 Chadian soldiers dead on February 22.

"Our soldiers killed two jihadist chiefs including Abou Zeid," he said.

However, the Islamist organisation itself has not yet confirmed the jihadist leader's death and officials in his native Algeria were carrying out DNA tests in an effort to confirm the demise of one of Africa's most wanted men.

Analysts have suggested Abou Zeid's death could spell AQIM's doom with other jihadist groups now thriving in the region but while Washington described the report as "very credible" France has so far treated it with caution.

Algeria's El Khabar newspaper said on Saturday that Algerian security services, who were the first to report Abou Zeid's death, had examined a body believed to be his.

"Algerian officers have examined a body said to be that of Abou Zeid in a military site in northern Mali and identified his personal weapon ... but were unable to formally identify" the body as his, it said.

"Confirmation of Abou Zeid's death remains linked to the results of DNA tests done on Thursday by Algeria on two members of his family," said El Khabar.

Mauritanian expert Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Aboulmaali pointed out that Algeria had announced his death several times in the past and that Chad needed morale boosting news after suffering such heavy losses.

Matthieu Guidere, a French university professor and al-Qaida specialist, also voiced caution in the absence of any confirmation of Abou Zeid's death on jihadist forums.

"Experience shows that jihadists never try to hide their dead and immediately broadcast their martyrdom," he said.

Abou Zeid, 46, whose real name is Mohamed Ghedir, was a former smuggler who embraced radical Islam in the 1990s and became one of AQIM's key leaders.

The US has said that it believes reports that the North African leader had been killed in fighting were "very credible".