Algerian Islamist urge 'reconciliation'

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ALGIERS, Algeria, May 31 (UPI) -- Two Algerian Islamist leaders have written to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, arguing for "historic reconciliation."

El Hachemi Sahnouni and Abdelfattah Zeraoui Hamadach have argued for "historic reconciliation" in Algeria in order to "block the way to acts of foreign interference" in the wake of the "Arab spring" and NATO intervention in neighboring Libya, Tout sur l'Algerie news agency reported Tuesday.

According to a draft of the letter obtained by the news agency, the pair wrote: "We must emerge from this bloodied tunnel and move toward a stage of historic reconciliation on all fronts: military, political, judicial, and social, as well as that of preaching."

They also wrote that "all learned men, preachers, politicians, the upholders of decision-making and influence, (military) command, knowledge, thinkers, elites and all those who have weight, for a successful solution."

"We must expect an intervention from the American military forces, from NATO, from an alliance of crusaders or a flood of armies of armed Islamists coming from all countries to settle scores on Algerian land, the country of millions of martyrs," Sahnouni and Hamadach wrote.