(UAE) The suicide bomber who blew himself up in central Algiers on April 11, killing 33 people and wounding over 2,000, and ripping apart the façade of the 8-storey seat of government, has set alarm-bells ringing furiously across southern Europe and North Africa.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by a radical group, which merged with Al Qaida last September and now calls itself Al Qaida pour le Maghreb Islamique (AQMI). It is said to be headed by a certain Abu Moussab, an engineer and explosive expert, who learned his trade in Afghanistan. The group, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), is said to comprise about 1,000 fighters, but to have affiliates abroad which provide recruits, finance and logistics. It has declared that its enemies are the Algerian authorities and the West. France in particular is a prime target, judged too supportive of the Algerian government of President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika.
With barely a week to the first round of the presidential elections which will bring to an end President Jacques Chirac's 12-year rule, France is on full alert. Thousands of extra police have been sent to guard sensitive sites such as nuclear power stations, transport links and water reservoirs, as well as political meetings in all the major towns. Spain and Italy are also taking extra security precautions.
Algiers is reeling from the shock of the attack because it has brought back nightmarish memories of the savage war of the 1990s, waged between the army and the Islamists, when more than 100,000 people died and 17,000 disappeared. Tens of thousands of Algeria's professional middle class - the best and brightest - emigrated. Some tentative conclusions may be drawn from the latest attacks which, as well as hitting the main government building - which was formerly the headquarters of the French colonial administration - also demolished a police station on the road to the new international airport.
Suicide bombings are an Al Qaida trademark, and seem to have been imported from Iraq. They had only been used once before in Algeria in the mid-1990s. They are alarming evidence of what are believed to be Al Qaida's ambitions to set up bases in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and to unify jihadist forces in a vast region stretching from Mauritania to the Horn of Africa. The Algerian bombings came a day after three suicide bombers blew themselves up in Morocco to evade capture by the police.
Driven to despair
The bombers seem to be young men, inflamed by television pictures of the wars in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan, and driven to hopelessness and despair by unemployment, injustice and humiliation in a country where Islamists are excluded from political life and the ruling party and the army have a stranglehold on power.
Their heroes are said to be Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaida's iconic figurehead, and Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic leader of Hezbollah, who alone are credited with standing up to the West, to Israel and to US President George W. Bush. Many of these deeply alienated youths try to find their way across the Mediterranean to Europe - often risking their lives in unsafe boats - but this just at a time when most European countries are flaunting defences against illegal immigration.
The terrorist attacks are a sharp personal setback for Bouteflika who, in 2005, initiated a policy of national reconciliation. Its centre piece was a general amnesty for Islamist militants who gave up the struggle, 'repented', and rejoined civil society. Some 300 fighters surrendered and a further 3,000 were released from jail. This policy is now being criticised as too lenient. Hardliners, especially among the Algerian military, are advocating a return to the former policy of 'eradication.' Algeria's war against militants is not yet over. Earlier this month the army launched a vast mopping up operation in Kabylia and other areas close to the capital. Seven soldiers died in an ambush on April 7.
The United States has been deeply involved in the struggle against Islamist groups in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Robert Gates, the new US Defence Secretary, has announced the creation of a new African command - AFCOM - to develop military cooperation with countries of the region and to mount operations when necessary. US Special Forces are already training African forces in several countries. In 2005, the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) was launched to extend military cooperation to countries of the Maghreb and West Africa.
Its main objectives are to root out Al Qaida from safe-havens in the region and to protect oil fields and offshore platforms in such oil producers as Nigeria, Gabon, Angola, Equatorial Guinea - and Algeria itself. The problem is that militant Islamic groups across the world are unlikely to be defeated by military action alone. To dry up recruits to their cause, real progress would need to be made in ending US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in ending Israel's siege and occupation of Palestinian territories, which is a major source of bitterness and rage among Muslims everywhere.
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10118528.html
Thanks to Abu Afak for the ping to this post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1817903/posts?page=21#21