"Intelligence Brief: Al-Qaeda's New Strategy in North Africa"
Mon.Apr.16,2007.
On April 11, 2007, Algeria's capital of Algiers was hit by two attacks that killed at least 24 people and wounded more than 200. Various car bombs exploded simultaneously, damaging the prime minister's office and devastating one of the suburbs of the city, Bab Ezzouar. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a new (or rebranded) terrorist group that has replaced the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (G.S.P.C.), claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying that three suicide bombers were involved in the operations.
The day before, another terrorist attack hit Casablanca, the economic capital of Morocco, where three militants and one police officer died. The attack occurred as Moroccan security forces were pursuing a terrorist cell allegedly responsible for an attempted blast against an internet cafe in Casablanca on March 11. Moreover, on April 8, nine Algerian soldiers and five Islamist militants were killed in an ambush against a military patrol in the area west of Algiers, while a major counter-terrorism operation led by the army was underway in the east of the country.
Several analysts underlined the many similarities between the events in Algeria and Morocco, describing the attacks as a plan masterminded by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It does not seem plausible, however, that the two acts were coordinated by a single leadership. First of all, the two operations were not simultaneous, something that presumably would have occurred if the plans were conceived and carried out by the same group (since an attack in a neighboring country inevitably raises the level of alert and awareness toward any possible act of terrorism).
Furthermore, the actual executions of the attacks were very different in the two countries: in Casablanca, the militants were chased by the police and forced to blow themselves up, highlighting the poor planning behind their operation, as already shown during the foiled attack of March 11; in Algiers, the blasts were carefully planned and executed, hitting the heart of Algerian political power and killing tens of people. Indeed, to state a connection between the two events seems premature at this point, as underlined by Chakib Benmoussa, the Moroccan interior minister, in an interview with Reuters.
Since the end of its civil war, Algeria has experienced a low intensity conflict led by the G.S.P.C., an organization that in 2006 declared its allegiance to al-Qaeda and renamed itself to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The relentless warfare has been defined as "residual terrorism" by the Algerian government, which enacted a policy of national reconciliation last year to strengthen its legitimacy and put an end to the conflict. Due to this initiative, thousands of former jihadists involved in the civil war were freed and some of them were reported to have joined the G.S.P.C., also because of the dire economic conditions in the country and the lack of actual alternatives. [See: "Terrorism Risk Remains in North Africa"]
Accordingly, the policy of national reconciliation has paradoxically prompted the resurgence of Algerian terrorism. This phenomenon has nothing in common with the latest events in Casablanca: in particular, the Moroccan insurgency seems less structured and organized, as demonstrated by the flawed executions of the attacks that occurred on March 11 and April 10; contacts between local militants and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have been reported, but it is too early to infer anything else from this news.
In the past, Algerian authorities have tried to depict Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as a region-wide organization that controls all terrorist activities in the area, but this statement has never been supported by any evidence and seems biased toward an overestimation of its structure in order to obtain more military aid from the United States.
On the contrary, the latest operations seem to confirm that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is still based on the structure and organization of the former G.S.P.C. Algeria acts as the epicenter of Islamic terrorism in the region: the G.S.P.C. is the only group capable of ambushing a military patrol and hitting the prime minister's office in less than ten days; the degree of coordination and discipline needed to achieve these operations is unknown in places like Libya, Tunisia and even Morocco.
In this sense, the renaming of the organization and its affiliation to al-Qaeda (with all the advantages stemming from the use of this world-famous brand, including wider media coverage) can be seen as a major offensive by the G.S.P.C. to impose its regional control and thus become the most important terrorist group in the area.
The new strategy of Abdelmalek Droukdel (also known as Abou Moussab Abdelouadoud), the leader of the organization, targets not only Algerian political power but also the population, marking a change of strategy: while at its outset the G.S.P.C. aimed at securing the support of the Algerian population against the government, now it seems that the main goal is to obtain attention and media coverage so to become the only credible representative of al-Qaeda in the region and thus join its global political project.
At this stage, it seems likely that Droukdel's strategy in the region is going to ensure Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb publicity and prestige among the Islamist cells active in Algeria and the neighboring countries. The poor planning behind the events in Casablanca, compared with the highly successful operations in Algiers, highlights the better organization of the former G.S.P.C. and its ability to exploit the weaknesses of the Algerian state. The way is open for this group to increase its operational space in the region, paradoxically encouraged by the policies enacted by the Algerian government in the recent months.
Source Fr. PINR.
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