Algeria buries military chief, de facto ruler amid protests

ALGIERS, Algeria — Algeria held an account for military funeral Wednesday for the common who used to be the gasoline-rich country’s de facto ruler amid political turmoil all the device by this yr.

Huge crowds packed the route of the funeral cortege Wednesday to pay homage to Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, chief of the military. Some people ran alongside flower-draped military vehicles, shouting in be troubled. Others saluted his coffin, draped in the Algerian flag, or kissed his portrait.

The 79-yr-old Gaid Salah died posthaste Monday after a coronary heart attack, plunging Algeria into fresh uncertainty after 10 months of pro-democracy protests.

After a ceremony on the Palace of the People, he used to be buried on the El Alia cemetery alongside others who fought in Algeria’s war for independence from France. Algeria’s military performs a central role in resolution-making in this country, a key ally to Western powers in stopping Islamic extremism.

Gaid Salah leaves in the serve of a mixed legacy.

Some mourned him as a image of the fading independence generation and a guarantor of steadiness amid this yr’s protests. Others noticed him as epitomizing an opaque management out of touch with worries of Algeria’s tall early life inhabitants.

Gaid Salah helped force out longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April amid unprecedented, peaceable protests against corruption and Algeria’s secretive energy structure.

The military chief then pushed forelections earlier this month, won by a outmoded high minister regarded as shut to Gaid Salah, Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Protesters later became against Gaid Salah, irritating his departure and a wholesale makeover of Algeria’s political structure. College students held their common weekly protests Tuesday after his loss of life, whatever the three days of respectable mourning declared by Algeria’s management.