Al-Qaeda Figure Surrenders In Algeria - Reports

ALGIERS (AFP)--A leading member of Al-Qaeda's North African branch has surrendered to Algerian authorities, several newspapers reported Sunday, citing security sources.

Ali Ben Touati, said to be a key leader of the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, gave himself up in Yakouren in the Tizi Ouzou region east of the capital Algiers, the El Watan and Algerie News newspapers said.

According to the reports Ben Touati, also known as Abou Tamime, said he was responding to a recent appeal by one of the leading Islamist militants in Algeria, Hassan Hattab.

Hattab called on militants to end their armed campaign in a message earlier this month in which he urged his followers to take advantage of a government amnesty.

The North African country, wracked by more than a decade of Islamist violence, adopted a national reconciliation charter offering the amnesty in a 2006 referendum.

Hattab was a founder member of the feared militant group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which aligned itself with Osama Bin Laden's network in 2007 to become the AQIM.

"I advise you to stop what you are doing and rejoin society and your families, " he wrote in the Jan. 18 message, adding that he condemned the organization's repeated acts of violence "which serve neither Islam nor Muslims."

Al-Qaeda's North African offshoot has claimed responsibility for a wave of suicide attacks that rocket Algeria in August killing more than 50 people.

In June, the group claimed several attacks that killed 37 soldiers.