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Algeria Mali Chad - Jihad Update and Neglected Developments
ReutersAljazeera ^ | mar 18 2004 | Nick Tattersall

Posted on 03/19/2004 10:14:30 AM PST by swarthyguy

US fears Islamic militants in Mauritania, Algeria

TIMBUKTU, Mali, March 18 (Reuters) - The United States fears hardline Islamic militants moving around the Sahara desert could try to topple the Algerian and Mauritanian governments, senior diplomatic and military officials said.

The U.S. ambassador to Mali, Vicki Huddleston, said a leader of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), an Algerian group allied to al Qaeda, could be looking to re-arm and link up with other militants in the region.

The leader, Amari Saifi, known as el Para and widely regarded as the GSPC's second-in-command, claimed responsibility for kidnapping 32 European tourists in the Sahara last year.

"There is a worry that he is looking for arms to continue terror action and that he could try to overthrow the government (in Algeria)," Huddleston told Reuters in a telephone interview late on Wednesday.

Military experts and diplomats in Algeria are concerned the GSPC may carry out more spectacular and desperate attacks now military offensives have sharply reduced rebel forces. But unlike the 1990s, experts do not believe the Algerian state is threatened, largely because of the huge security in place.

Huddleston also said plotters behind an attempted coup in Mauritania last June were believed to be hiding in northern Mali -- a state five times the size of Britain -- and they could link up with the Salafists to threaten the country again.

The United States has taken an increasing interest in the Maghreb and the Sahel regions -- which lie to the north and south of the Sahara respectively -- since the suicide airplane attacks on New York and Washington two and a half years ago.

"Part of this (interest) was September 11 -- the fact that there are vast spaces up in the north of these countries that could be used by terrorists and others who are against the West," Huddleston said.

U.S. Special Forces finished training Malian troops in Timbuktu, on the southern edge of the Sahara, on Thursday. U.S. military experts will also go to Niger and Chad to help tighten border security in one of the world's most inhospitable regions.

Earlier this month, Chad's army killed 43 Islamic militants that its government said were GSPC members during two days of heavy fighting. A Malian army commander in Timbuktu said his troops had chased GSPC units out of the country in January.

Washington fears al Qaeda cells driven out of Afghanistan and parts of the Middle East could also be seeking new havens in the region, seen as potentially fertile recruiting ground because of weak national governance and lax border policing.

Brigadier General Douglas Lute, deputy director at the plans and operation centre of U.S. European Military Command, said the presence of groups like the GSPC had boosted instability in the Sahel but posed no immediate threat to the United States.

"We do not perceive an immediate threat on American interests beyond the threat to Algeria itself, which is an ally in the region," Lute told Reuters. *-------------------------------------------------------* Top Islamist fighter escapes Chad dragnet

Friday 19 March 2004, 17:11 Makka Time, 14:11 GMT

The second in command of Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), Amari Saifi, has escaped a Chadian army dragnet and fled to Algeria's southern Sahara desert.

Saifi, better known as Abderrezak the Para, who was said by diplomats to have fought alongside GSPC fighters in clashes with Chadian soldiers in Chad's northern Tibesti region last week, "survived the fighting, but one of his lieutenants, named Bilal, was killed," an African diplomat in Mali said.

A Western military source in Bamako confirmed the report, saying that Abderrezak had been able to "return to the Algerian Sahara with a small group of followers".

The GSPC was behind the kidnapping last year of 32 European tourists in southern Algeria's vast Sahara desert, some of whom it held hostage for six months.

Hideout

A first group of hostages was released in May, when the Algerian army raided the kidnappers' hideout near the border with Libya, but a second group was made to trek across the desert into Mali, and was only released in August, reportedly after a hefty ransom was paid to the GSPC.

The military source said he was surprised at the toll given by the Chadian government for the clashes in Tibesti.

"The GSPC is in the process of reorganising, recruiting in the sub-region among poor people"

Unnamed African diplomat

Last week, the government in Ndjamena said in a statement that 43 GSPC fighters -"nine Algerians, with the rest from Nigeria, Niger and Mali" - had been killed in the clashes with Chadian forces, which lost three men and had 18 injured.

"According to us, no more than 15 Islamists were killed. And we want to see pictures of the prisoners allegedly taken by Chad," the military source said.

The radical Islamic group, the larger of two movements that have been fighting Algeria's secular government since 1992, has been hunted in at least three countries, but "that doesn't mean it has been eliminated, as some people tend to believe," said the African diplomat.

"We have to be very careful. The GSPC is in the process of reorganising, recruiting in the sub-region among poor people," he said.

Niger government sources said last week the army had "driven the extremists out" of northern Niger in late February after they attacked a convoy of tourists. *-------------------------------------------------------* U.S.-trained Malian troops ready for desert battle

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Nick Tattersall

TIMBUKTU, Mali, March 18 (Reuters) - The caravan driver seemed to slow for a moment, but jumped at the sound of gunfire and herded his camels away as a line of Kalashnikov-wielding soldiers ran across the sand shouting "boom! boom!"

"You're already dead! Lie down!" came a shout from behind a sand-coloured jeep, as Timbuktu's 512th Motorised Infantry Company bore down on their imagined enemy.

Thursday marks the final day of training with U.S. Special Forces for Mali's troops in the Sahara desert, patrolling a region roughly the size of Texas where Washington says Islamic extremists are roaming freely along ancient trading routes.

"They've run out of blank ammunition," said the U.S. Special Forces Detachment Commander, as the soldiers imitated the sound of rifle fire. "Limited resources make it challenging."

U.S. military experts have been in Timbuktu since January, giving basic weapons training and teaching Malian troops how to move effectively in platoons and ambush the enemy.

The aim is to help the former French colony's army to police massive swathes of sand and stop what the United States calls terror networks criss-crossing the desert and setting up cells.

Washington is most worried about the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), a hardline Algerian Islamic militant movement that has pledged allegiance to al Qaeda.

The armies of Mali, one of Algeria's southern neighbours, and Chad say they have clashed with GSPC members in recent months.

"What you see is fundamentalist preachers coming through trying to seduce a peace-loving region in Mali and the Sahel into a more fundamentalist branch of the religion," Vicki Huddleston, U.S. ambassador in Mali, told Reuters by telephone.

She said the idea was to "empower the militaries" in West African countries on the southern fringes of the Sahara, and get them to work together.

Colonel Younoussa Barazi Maiga, who heads the Malian forces that cover the huge region north of Timbuktu, said his troops had chased up to 100 GSPC members out of Mali in January.

"They had some bases towards the west and we attacked them. There were about 20 vehicles with around four or five people in each," he said, watching his troops complete an ambush exercise.

"They have never done any harm to our people but we don't want them here," he said, adding they had fled to Niger and Chad.

SHADOWS IN THE SAND

Chad's government said earlier this month its army had killed 43 Islamic militants in two days of heavy fighting. It said those killed were GSPC members and included nine Algerians and nationals from Niger, Nigeria and Mali.

The armies of Chad and neighbouring Niger will receive U.S. training, like their counterparts in Mali and Mauritania.

U.S. satellites are also helping pinpoint suspected militants.

Brigadier General Douglas Lute, deputy director of the plans and operations centre at U.S. European Military Command (EUCOM), which is responsible for most U.S. military operations in Africa, said the GSPC was the main concern in the Sahara.

Algeria's hardline rebel movements have largely been defeated following a 1999 amnesty and a successful military offensive, which has intensified over the past year.

The northeast-based GSPC is the main rebel group still active, although it has been significantly weakened by the military and in-fighting.

More than 150,000 Algerians died in a decade of violence, mostly at the hands of the rebels, according to human rights groups.

"Perhaps because of the effectiveness of the Algerian campaign we have seen an increased presence outside Algeria. This has raised concerns the region is somewhat of a safe haven for these sort of groups," he told Reuters by telephone.

"The nature of cellular terror networks is that they are very shadowy up until the events. That's the importance of being out in front," he said. It is a message the troops of Timbuktu seem to have taken on board.

"When you live in areas like this you always have to think that there is an enemy, especially as Islamic groups disperse here and there and leave their country to come to us," said Captain Lassime Keita, dressed in U.S. desert fatigues.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: algeria; chad; mali; swarthyguy
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CEA13C8E-8E6E-4FE5-B7DA-1754DA8652D3.htm
1 posted on 03/19/2004 10:14:33 AM PST by swarthyguy
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To: Shermy; knighthawk; Dog; Dog Gone; Cap Huff; Boot Hill
JIhad in the Maghreb.

Timbuktu? Hotel Khan again.

Surprising to hear of such a threat to Algeria.

And Mali and Chad seem to be heating up.

Now, where did Wilson go? What didn't he find?
2 posted on 03/19/2004 10:31:05 AM PST by swarthyguy
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To: swarthyguy
Possibly we are getting a jumpstart on these areas. I was in Chad this past year. The Muslims and Christians interact - was difficult to discern which was which. All they need are some troublemakers.
I am interested in these areas - please ping me if you run into other info.
3 posted on 03/19/2004 10:35:14 AM PST by daybreakcoming
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To: daybreakcoming
Tons of stuff on Google about this campaign and the mess there.

I think Libya's intel service and military assets may be of use here.
4 posted on 03/19/2004 10:36:36 AM PST by swarthyguy
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To: swarthyguy; marron
Following Afghanistan, another primitive homeland for the "base" to live out their fantasies about how they think the Prophet lived. Lots of poor women to marry too, I imagine. Can't do that in Afstan anymore. Even most of the Pashtuns couldn't stand the Arabs anymore.

Plus one can unwind with a cocktail at Hotel Khan, or if a teetotaler, sip mint tea and negotiate mining deals with Ambassador Joe Wilson as the sun sets, the camel caravans pass in the distance...

5 posted on 03/19/2004 10:47:08 AM PST by Shermy (< /plamegate reference>)
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