NewsTracker Answers for week of Jan. 21, 2013

Q: Algerian officials said their army launched a final assault after Islamist militants began killing the foreign hostages they had seized four days earlier at a natural gas plant in the desert. Where is Algeria on this map?

Circle the area on this map

Q: The militants said their attack was in retaliation for the French troops sweeping into neighboring Mali this month to stop an advance of Islamist rebels. Mali is . . .

A. East of Algeria

B. Southeast of Algeria

C. Southwest of Algeria

D. West of Algeria

C. Algeria is bordered in the north by the Mediterranean Sea, in the east by Tunisia and Libya, in the southeast by Niger, in the southwest by Mauritania and Mali, and in the west by Morocco and Western Sahara.

Q: Both Algeria and Mali are . . .

A. Mostly Muslim

B. Mostly desert

C. Former French colonies

D. All of the above

D. The Sahara Desert covers most of Algeria and northern Mali. Both nations gained independence from France in the 1960s, and 99 percent of Algerians and 90 percent of Malians are Muslim.

Q: The Algerian government has been battling Islamist militants since a civil war in 1990s, and a campaign of bombings has shaken the nation including the capital . . .

A. Algiers

B. Damascus

C. Cairo

D. Tripoli

A. Algiers is situated on a bay of the Mediterranean Sea and has a population of about 1.5 million. Damascus is the capital of Syria; Cairo is the capital of Egypt; and Tripoli is the capital of Libya.

Q: True or false: Algeria is the largest country on the African continent:

A. True

B. False

A. With 919,595 square miles, Algeria is the world's tenth-largest country and became Africa's largest nation when South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011.