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A Movement That Takes Its Examples From al-Qaeda    [

    Al-Qaeda in Algiers
    Le Monde | Editorial

    Thursday 12 April 2007

    With bomb explosions and suicide actions, al-Qaeda weaves its web in the Mahgreb. The bloody attacks in Algiers Wednesday, April 11, seem to confirm that the name change of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (SGPC) to Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb corresponds, at least to some degree, to reality.

    Apart from the claim itself, several indications point in that direction. Up until now, with only one exception, no armed Islamic Algerian group had ever used kamikazes, while that is the usual form bin Laden network action takes. One of the chosen objectives, the government building, targeted by a car stuffed with explosives in the very center of a highly secured perimeter in the heart of Algiers, seems to testify to a more developed audacity and logistics capacity than that of the former SGPC - once well-known, moreover, for striking only at security forces and not at civilians. The chosen date: April 11, after the American September 11, the Spanish March 11, and the foiled attacks that were planned for airplanes over the Atlantic on August 11, 2006 seems to point in the same direction.

    Consequently, these attacks have a double significance. On the one hand, one month from the Algerian legislative elections on May 17 - from which no major political changes are expected - they are a slap in the face and a challenge to the Algerian government. They explode the fiction of the success of a "national reconciliation" policy after the 2005 referendum that was supposed to mark the end of the civil war of the 1990s and beginning years of the 2000s. On the other hand, they seem to confirm that al-Qaeda is now applying to Algeria a tactic already used in Morocco: to pressure governments and become an actor in the domestic policy of Maghreb countries by means of existing armed groups, now "franchised," that, in return, benefit from al-Qaeda's media exposure and aura in a part of the Muslim world.

    Finally, in a more indirect way, the Algiers attacks remind Europe, and particularly France - already threatened by the former SGPC - that the danger of al-Qaeda is right there. The implantation of bin Laden's disciples in the Maghreb, even in the Sahel, also aims to supply the terrorists with operational bases close to the European continent. The former SGPC seems, moreover, to be a means to approaching part of the Sahel populations.

    The Algerian government and President Bouteflika are, of course, not responsible for the dynamic of al-Qaeda, a ferocious adversary of any democratization or modernization in Arab countries. But stasis in the face of social problems and of the despair of some youth and the establishment of façade democracies contribute to supplying pretexts for Islamist violence, in Algeria as elsewhere in the Arab world.

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    A Movement That Takes Its Examples From al-Qaeda
    Charlotte Clidi interviews Renè Backmann
    Le Nouvel Observateur

    Thursday 12 April 2007

    Three kamikazes blew themselves up Tuesday in Casablanca during a police operation. They were suspected of preparing a series of suicide attacks especially targeting tourist sites. Why those sites? Which are the main [Islamist] groups in Morocco?

    According to the Moroccan police services, the targeted sites were the port of Casablanca, police commissariats and tourist sites. If those plans were real, the chosen targets were neither very original, nor very surprising. Targeting the port harms the country's foreign trade, hence striking the economy. The economy is also targeted via tourist sites: everyone knows that tourism is one of Morocco's major resources. Moreover, targeting tourist sites also means targeting foreigners, hence multiplying the impact of the terror the effect of which will reverberate in other countries through their citizens spending time in Morocco. Finally, targeting police stations means taking on the state apparatus, the forces of repression, showing jihadist candidates and the entire public that not even the police frighten fighters for jihad.

    With respect to the jihadist groups already in Morocco, one must distinguish between armed organizations and a political party such as the Party for Justice and Development (PJD), considered moderately Islamist and which could, according to a number of observers, come out the winner from the legislative elections scheduled for the autumn. Some armed organizations have already made themselves known through terrorist actions. The attacks that killed 45 people, including 12 kamikazes, in May 2003 in Casablanca, were claimed by the Salafia Jihadia movement. In August of the same year, 87 accomplices of the terrorists, arrested during the course of several police operations, were brought before the courts. Four were condemned to death and 37 to life imprisonment.

    Are there connections between that Salafia Jihadia group and the Islamist Group for Combat in Morocco (GICM) to which the Casablanca terrorists could ally themselves? It's not impossible. One thing only is clear: all these young Moroccans, most of whom come from the poorest neighborhoods - even the slums - result from the same movement that takes as its examples the actions conducted across the globe by al-Qaeda, bin Laden's "terrorist galaxy." That doesn't mean they receive orders from bin Laden or one of his lieutenants to act at such and such a time in such and such a place, but that they inscribe their action in an al-Qaeda framework.

    We know, in fact, that the main Algerian jihadist organization, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (SGPC), well-know, to Western - especially French - secret services, has scattered a multitude of cells throughout the Maghreb, in Libya and Morocco as well as Tunisia in recent years. And while these cells seem rather well-organized, strong and capable of autonomous action, the SGPC announced its name change at the end of January, becoming "Al-Qaeda's Organization in the Islamic Mahgreb countries." That organization took credit for the attacks in Algiers Wednesday. The terrorists who blew themselves up in Morocco just as they were about to be arrested are suspected of belonging to that organization - or at least that movement.

    So the attacks in Morocco and Algeria are connected? Can we expect an intensification of Islamist terrorist activity in the Maghreb?

    There could, in fact, be a connection, as I have indicated. That would suppose coordination among the different Maghrebi jihadist movements. That's plausible, but at this time, we have no proof. I repeat: the fact that two terrorist groups in two neighboring countries claim to belong to a common organization proves that they recognize themselves in that organization, that they accept its patronage, its example, its discourse. That does not prove that they receive orders to act from a single leader or command. The true nature of al-Qaeda - when you talk about groups linked to al-Qaeda - is more like a highly decentralized "organization of organizations" than a pyramidal network with a rigorous hierarchy. That's - alas - what makes it strong and relatively invulnerable.

    Aren't the terrorist plot in Morocco that was foiled in September 2006 and these new arrests the sign of a radicalization of Moroccan fundamentalists? If not, what is it that favors this movement? What's the position of the Moroccan monarchy?

    Everything depends on what "fundamentalists" you're talking about. Those of the PJD, who have been denounced by the jihadists as quasi-"collaborators" with the government, have no need to radicalize themselves. It's enough for them to continue to campaign on their habitual themes - the injustice of the system, the coexistence of an immense majority of the poor with a minority of very wealthy people linked to the court, the corruption and dissolute morals of the powerful - to win votes in a population that sees its standard of living stagnate and which expects nothing more from the regime; to win votes and maybe even the elections.

    On the other hand, perhaps the armed Islamists need to show their existence, prove their strength and assert their presence in the face of these "moderates." Their strategy, which could be coordinated with that of Algerian, Tunisian or Libyan Islamists, could also have the objective of responding to police services' offensives in the various countries where they are active. From one point of view, it's clear that the terrorist networks in Morocco - and also in Algeria - have resisted the operations security services have conducted for many years.

    The position of the Moroccan monarchy is very delicate. Commander of the Faithful, the King of Morocco, must show that he makes a distinction among the majority of Muslims in his country who accept his authority; "political Islamists" who contest his power at the ballot box, and the armed Islamists who fight the regime with weapons in hand. Some specialists deem that by making too many concessions (notably in the cultural domain) to "moderate" Islamists in the attempt to win their sympathy, the monarchy has ended up producing a "fundamentalist fundamentalism" from which the jihadists, having little by little radicalized themselves, have emerged....