Yacine Benalia was an Algerian-born British citizen and
Islamist militant who allegedly participated in the
Beslan school
hostage crisis in September 2004. Whether he truly participated is unclear, as he was also reported killed in Chechnya in March 2004,
six months before the hostage drama in
North Ossetia
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Etymology
The word ''north'' is ...
.
Rebel Activity
Benalia allegedly fled Algeria in the 1990s for
London, where he eventually became a British citizen.
According to
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...
, he was a frequent visitor of the
Finsbury Park Mosque, known for the fiery jihadist preaching of
Abu Hamza al-Masri.
Benalia is said to have arrived in the
North Caucasus in 2001 in order to battle Russian forces during the Second Chechen War.
Death
While some reports suggest Benalia possibly died in the siege of the school in Beslan, it has also been reported that he - along with fellow Algerian militant
Osman Larussi Osman is the Persian transliteration and derived from the Arabic masculine given name Uthman ( ar, عُثْمان, , link=no ''‘uthmān'') or an English surname. It may refer to:
People
* Osman (name), people with the name
* Osman I (1258–132 ...
- was killed by Russian federal forces in Chechnya on 8 March 2004.
References
External links
: Beslan: The Aftermath
Algerian emigrants to England
Beslan hostagetakers
Foreign volunteers in Chechnya
2004 deaths
1969 births
{{Algeria-paramilitary-bio-stub