Algerian Islamist leader buried in his country after his death in exile

Abbadi Madani, founder of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), banned in Algeria, was buried Saturday in Algiers in front of thousands of supporters after his death in Qatar, where he had long been living in exile.

Madani's body was transported from her family home to the Ennadi Mosque, where the believers recited the Islamic funeral prayer before being transported to a cemetery.

The cries of "God is the greatest" and the slogans used by the FIS in the 1990s sounded.

The mourners had gathered long before the arrival of the remains of Madani, who had called for armed struggle in 1992 after the Algerian army canceled the country's first multiparty legislative elections.

Abbadi Madani, who died this week in Qatar, founded the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front, now banned. By Karim JAAFAR (AFP / File)

The FIS won this election and pushed for the creation of an Islamic state in the North African nation.

He died Wednesday in a Doha hospital as a result of a "long illness" at the age of 88, said FIS co-founder Ali Belhadj.

The FIS was in the process of winning an absolute majority in the 1991-92 legislative elections when the army canceled the second round, triggering a decade of civil war that left 200,000 dead, according to official figures.

Madani had been living in Qatar since 2003. He had fled after serving a 12-year prison sentence in Algeria on charges prior to the election.

For many Algerians, Madani was most often badociated with the spilling of blood during the civil war between security forces and sometimes rival Islamist armed groups.

He was imprisoned in 1991 and called for an end to the violence only in 1999, when his group said he was laying down his arms.