Leader of Algerian Group Vows Obedience to bin Laden in New Video

The leader of an Algerian terrorist group hinted in a new video posted on the Internet that his group would follow al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's instructions if asked to fight outside of Algeria.

"Place us wherever you want. You will find us to be obedient," says Abu Musaab Abdul Wadud in the 22-minute video entitled "We Are Coming."

The Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) joined al Qaeda in 2006 and pledged allegiance to bin Laden, as announced in a video by al Zawahri and later confirmed by the group itself.

"Our brothers will be a thorn in the necks of the American and French crusaders and their allies, and a dagger in the hearts of the French traitors and apostates," Zawahri said of the Algerian group in his video on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Armed Islamic Group (GIA)/Salafi Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) Extremist group that aims to replace the secular Algerian regime with an Islamic state. Activities: Between 1992 and 1998 the group massacred an estimated 100,000 civilians; violence resumed again in 2001. - Source: U.S. Department of State - Source: U.S. Department of State
***
Armed Islamic Group (GIA) (also known as Groupe islamique armé (GIA))------- "Regulations Establishing a List of Entities ( C-46 -- SOR/2002-284 )," [For Canada's criminal code] .Source: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/SOR-2002-284/text.html, Updated to April 30, 2003 [Unofficial docs]

1991 : (ALGERIA, IRAQ & GIA - See GSPC) IT IS A CURIOUS FACT, then, that Saddam Hussein provided financial assistance to the GIA [Armed Islamic Group] when it was in its earliest stages of germination. There is still much we do not know about Saddam's relationship with al Qaeda's Algerian affiliate. But, Iraq's relationship with the GIA warrants further investigation given its tortuous history. THE ROOTS OF SADDAM'S RELATIONSHIP with the GIA trace back to the 1991 Gulf War. The group's early history is particularly useful in understanding why Saddam would offer the GIA his support.
As the [Gulf] war approached, Saddam sought and received support from a conspicuous group of Islamist radicals. Among them was the Sudanese leader Hassan al-Turabi and an Algerian Islamist named Abbas Madani [ leader of Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front (the "FIS")], both of whom traveled to Baghdad in the months prior to the war and declared their support for Saddam.
Madani was then the leader of Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front (the "FIS"), which was a consortium of four Islamist parties formed to obtain democratically-elected political power. Madani was somewhat more tempered in his support for Saddam than his cohort, Ali Benhadj, because he feared (correctly) that support for Saddam would end Saudi financial support for the FIS. Benhadj overcame Madani's reticence, however, and moved the FIS firmly into Saddam's camp. According to Gilles Keppel (Jihad, The Trail of Political Islam), Benhadj--who was accompanied by "a detachment of Afghan-garbed jihadists fresh from Peshawar"--took to the streets and "delivered a harangue in front of the [Algerian] Ministry of Defense in which he demanded the formation of a corps of volunteers to join the forces of Saddam Hussein."
Writing in Al Qaeda's Armies, Middle East expert Jonathan Schanzer explains that as the Gulf War neared the "FIS became increasingly pro-Iraq and anti-U.S., as seen through their slogans, protests, and even training camps for volunteers to fight for Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The U.S. conflict with Iraq was a powerful symbol of FIS's soaring popularity."
------------- "Iraq and Al Qaeda - The Algerian Connection : Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria? ," by Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard, 08/03/2005 12:00:00 AM, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/919kltpp.asp

1994 : (CIA CONVINCED THAT "CONSIDERABLE SUMS" OF MONEY , SOME FROM IRAQ, WAS GOING TO THE GIA [later the GSPC] IN ALGERIA THROUGH BIN LADEN) In a USA Today article from December 2001, Stanley Bedlington, a senior analyst in the CIA's counterterrorism center until he retired in 1994, explained, "We were convinced that money from Iraq was going to bin Laden, who was then sending it to places that Iraq wanted it to go." He added, "There certainly is no doubt that Saddam Hussein had pretty strong ties to bin Laden while he was in Sudan, whether it was directly or through (Sudanese) intermediaries. We traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq."...
Later, in an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD's Stephen Hayes, [Stanley] Bedlington elaborated on the [Iraq/bin Laden] relationship. "Osama bin Laden had established contact with the GIA," Bedlington explained, "Saddam was using bin Laden to ship funds to his own contacts through the GIA."
THE EXTENT of this financial arrangement is not clear. Declassifying the evidence of Saddam's financial relationship with bin Laden collected by the CIA in the early 1990s, as cited by [Stanley] Bedlington, would be a good start to answering these questions. It is likely, however, that we will never know the true extent of Saddam's support for the GIA. This is particularly troublesome since the GIA went on to become one of al Qaeda's most prolific affiliates; a brief review of the terrorist dossier compiled by the GIA and its descendant, the GSPC, demonstrates that further investigation of Saddam's support for the group is warranted.
------------- "Iraq and Al Qaeda - The Algerian Connection : Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria? ," by Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard, 08/03/2005 12:00:00 AM, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/919kltpp.asp

1990s : (ALGERIAN TERRORIST GROUP GIA RECEIVES AID & TRAINING FROM AL QAEDA; GIA ALSO ESTABLISHES A STRONG PRESENCE IN EUROPE) "The Islamists [GIA] were not alone in their violent struggle against the secular government [of Algeria]. Throughout the 1990s they received financial and logistical support from al Qaeda, as hundreds of Algerian militants trained in al Qaeda training camps in Sudan and Afghanistan. And while battling the secular government at home, the GIA established a strong presence in Europe, where its cells interacted with other Islamist groups and provided the militants fighting in Algeria with money, weapons and false documents," [...Lorenzo Vidino explained ...before Congress's Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation [before August 2005]
Indeed, the GIA's strong presence in Western Europe played a vital role in al Qaeda's planning and execution of a number attacks. One such incident proved to be an eerie forerunner of the events of September 11, 2001. Four GIA terrorists hijacked an Air France flight leaving Algiers in December 1994. Their goal was to force the pilot to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower. Their plan failed when the plane landed in Marseille and French Special Forces overtook it, killing the hijackers in the process.
------------- "Iraq and Al Qaeda - The Algerian Connection : Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria? ," by Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard, 08/03/2005 12:00:00 AM, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/919kltpp.asp

DECEMBER 1994 : (GIA TERRORISTS HIJACK AN AIR FRANCE FLIGHT WITH INTENTIONS OF FLYING IT TO PARIS, FRANCE AND PLOWING IT INTO THE EIFFEL TOWER - See GIA/GSPC, ALGERIA, IRAQ, AL QAEDA) Indeed, the GIA's strong presence in Western Europe played a vital role in al Qaeda's planning and execution of a number attacks. One such incident proved to be an eerie forerunner of the events of September 11, 2001. Four GIA terrorists hijacked an Air France flight leaving Algiers in December 1994. Their goal was to force the pilot to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower. Their plan failed when the plane landed in Marseille and French Special Forces overtook it, killing the hijackers in the process.
----------- "Iraq and Al Qaeda - The Algerian Connection : Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria? ," by Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard, 08/03/2005 12:00:00 AM, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/919kltpp.asp

1998 : (ALGERIA : NOW UNPOPULAR GIA TERRORISTS RENAME THEIR GROUP THE SALAFI GROUP FOR PREACHING AND COMBAT aka GSPC - See GIA/GSPC, ALGERIA, IRAQ, AL QAEDA) By 1998, however, support for the [GIA terrorist] group within Algeria began to wane after years of brutal attacks on civilians, so one of the GIA's former leaders reconstituted the group as the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (the "GSPC"). The GSPC subsumed much of the GIA's international network and terrorists operating within the GSPC's sphere continued to assault the western world.------------- "Iraq and Al Qaeda - The Algerian Connection : Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria? ," by Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard, 08/03/2005 12:00:00 AM, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/919kltpp.asp

DECEMBER 1999 : (GSPC LINKED TO THE LAX MILLENIUM PLOT - See Ressam, GIA/GSPC, ALGERIA, IRAQ, AL QAEDA) Members of the GSPC have been connected to terrorist plots and attacks in Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere, several of which are particularly noteworthy. The aforementioned plot on LAX at the turn of the new millennium is thought to have been spawned within the GSPC's Canadian presence, which it inherited from the GIA.
------------- "Iraq and Al Qaeda - The Algerian Connection : Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria? ," by Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard, 08/03/2005 12:00:00 AM, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/919kltpp.asp

2001 summer : (G8 ASSASSINATION PLOT AGAINST BUSH - LINKED TO GSPC CELL IN EUROPE? - - See GIA/GSPC, ALGERIA, IRAQ, AL QAEDA) According to Lorenzo Vidino, "A GSPC cell in Europe is believed to have planned to kill President Bush at the G8 meeting in Genoa in the summer of 2001." ------------- "Iraq and Al Qaeda - The Algerian Connection : Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria? ," by Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard, 08/03/2005 12:00:00 AM, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/919kltpp.asp

SEPTEMBER 9, 2001 : (AFGHANISTAN : GSPC PROVIDES PASSPORTS TO THE ASSASSINS WHO MURDERED NORTHERN ALLIANCE LEADER AHMAD MASSOUD - - See GIA/GSPC, ALGERIA, IRAQ, AL QAEDA) According to Schanzer, two members of the GSPC provided passports to the assassins of bin Laden's main nemesis within Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Massoud, just two days prior to September 11, 2001. "Massoud's assassination," Schanzer notes, "was likely designed to weaken the Northern Alliance with the full expectation that the U.S. would require its help in the post-September 11 invasion of Afghanistan."------------- "Iraq and Al Qaeda - The Algerian Connection : Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria? ," by Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard, 08/03/2005 12:00:00 AM, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/919kltpp.asp

Now stick a set of donkey ears on your head and click your hels together three times and chant "There is no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda and 9/11... there is no connection..."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.