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Algeria's extremist militant group, the GSPC, has declared war on foreign people and companies in the oil-rich North African country.The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, gave their war declaration on an Islamic website today. They declare war on &NULL;everything that is foreign and atheistic within Algeria's borders. The GSPC is one of the largest militant groups in Algeria and is believed to have ties with al Qaeda. They made news headlines last year with the prolonged kidnapping of 32 western tourists, including one Dutchman, Arjan Hilbers.

LONDON [MENL] -- Al Qaida operatives have been relocating to the southern Sahara Desert in Algeria and have prepared secret bases near the border with Mali. Western intelligence sources said the Al Qaida effort was detected in early 2003 and has been aided by the Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call. They said the Salafist leadership has provided Al Qaida with hideouts and logistics in the mountain region. "The area is ideal for Al Qaida training and command functions," an intelligence source said. "The area is isolated and is located along the border with Mali, where there is no trace...

REUTERS: 27 Sep 2003 10:59:07 GMTAlgerian army kills 150 Islamic rebels - report ALGIERS, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Algeria's armed forces have killed 150 Islamic rebels in their most successful attack on guerrilla hideouts since the North African country plunged into violence a decade ago, a newspaper said on Saturday. A crackdown on the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) by the armed forces and state-armed militias started two weeks ago and is still going on in the province of Setif, 300 kms (190 miles) east of Algiers, the influential El Watan newspaper said, citing military sources. It said...

A GROUP of 14 European tourists held hostage for up to six months were today freed by their captors, officials in the northern Malian town of Gao said, amid a report that a ransom had been paid. The officials said the nine Germans, four Swiss and a Dutchman, abducted by a suspected Islamic extremist group, were released in the town of Tessalit in the northeastern region of Kidal. Germany's public ZDF television reported that it followed a payment to the kidnappers yesterday of a ransom, although the station said the money did not come from the German government. According...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Kidnappers who have held 14 European tourists hostage in the Sahara desert for the past five months are demanding a ransom of 4.6 million euros (3.2 million pounds) for each one, German television reports. The hostages -- nine Germans, four Swiss and one Dutch national -- were among 32 European tourists seized by armed rebels in a remote area of southern Algeria, famous for ancient grave sites but also known for arms and drugs smuggling. Negotiations were under way with the kidnappers through an intermediary, but no quick release was expected, N-TV quoted unnamed diplomats in Mali...

Tuesday June 24, 22:53 PM Italian police arrest six in crackdown on Islamist cell Italy's financial police launched a major swoop on an Islamist group said to have ties to the al-Qaeda network, raiding dozens of sites around Milan and arresting six for allegedly financing and abetting a terrorist organisation.In an operation unleashed at dawn, 170 officers searched around 40 sites including a mosque in the northern region of Lombardy, police said Tuesday.Five Tunisians and an imam, or religious leader, of Moroccan origin were arrested. A seventh Tunisian was also sought but is probably already imprisoned in Tunisia, police added.They...

Algerian sources report that the seventeen hostages freed in Algeria were in the hands of Muslim extremists. The kidnappers are said to belong to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), a banned Islamist organisation suspected of having links with al-Qaeda. The freed tourists are all ten Austrians, six Germans and one Swede. There is great concern about the fate of the fifteen hostages still missing. The German government regards their situation as precarious. It is not clear how the hostages were freed. The Algerian army is said to have killed nine hostage-takers in the southern region of Tamanrasset....

Germany is poised to send its crack anti-terrorist GSG9 police unit to Algeria to help free 31 European tourists thought to have been kidnapped after they vanished in the Sahara between February and April this year.European governments are frustrated by the lack of progress made by Algeria in finding the tourists - 15 Germans, 10 Austrians, four Swiss, a Dutchman and a Swede - who had been travelling in several groups when they disappeared.   There has been no official word on their whereabouts or of any ransom demand from their kidnappers - believed to be members of the Salafist...

Algeria has made an important breakthrough in its search for 31 missing European tourists with the discovery of one of their vehicles and confirmation from a senior army official that they are in the hands of more than a dozen Islamists. The tourists have been separated into two groups and are being held in canyons and gullies near the town of Illizi, which lies near the Libyan border some 900 miles south-east of Algiers, a senior security official told the French newspaper Le Monde yesterday. The 15 Germans, 10 Austrians, four Swiss, a Dutchman and a Swede who, while travelling...

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) - Islamic militants ambushed a military convoy in northeast Algeria and attacked families near the capital, in a bloody weekend of killings that claimed at least 56 lives, Algerian media reported Sunday. The ambush Saturday night reportedly killed 43 soldiers and seriously wounded 19, the deadliest assault suffered by the Algerian military in at least five years. In the other attack, Islamic militants killed 13 people from two families overnight Saturday in Zabana, 30 miles south of the capital Algiers, the official news agency APS reported, citing security services. It attributed the attack to the Armed Islamic...

BERLIN (AP) - Germany on Wednesday said it had received intelligence of a possible al-Qaida threat to shoot down civilian airliners, while officials in India claimed they had evidence of an imminent al-Qaida attack on financial institutions in Bombay. The warnings came as French authorities detained five people accused of helping the alleged shoe bomber in his scheme to bring down a passenger plane in December 2001. The German warning was triggered after a civilian intercepted radio traffic in the Middle East, in which a private person was overheard talking about the possibility of attacks on airliners in Germany, said...