In Brief

• On Sept. 11, 2006, al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the merger of al-Qaida and the GSPC.
• The GSPC officially changed its name to the Organization of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb on Jan. 26, 2007, after being given permission by Osama bin Laden.
• The GSPC broke away from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in 1996.
• GSPC has approximately 300-1,000 active members.  

In the Spotlight: Organization of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb

The newly renamed organization of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) -- formerly the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) -- recently killed approximately 30 people and wounded more than 220 in two suicide attacks in Algiers, an action which sparked fears among some civilians of a resurgence in terrorist violence reminiscent of an earlier insurgency in Algeria which began in 1992, due to the cancellation of elections by the government and lasted until the Armed Islamic Group was defeated in 2002. On April 11, 2007, two explosions set off by suicide bombers utilizing vehicles rocked the capital city for the first time in several years. One of the devices was detonated when the driver careened his vehicle into a guard post at the prime minister’s government building. The second driver detonated outside a police station in Bab Ezzouar. Some evidence has been found that suggests that one of the devices may have been remotely detonated.

The AQIM also bombed seven targets in Algeria on Feb. 13, 2007, in what appeared to be coordinated, near-simultaneous attacks. At least four people were killed in the bombings which largely targeted police stations. Car bombs were used in all seven explosions. At the time, the relatively large-scale nature of these attacks was unprecedented in the group’s history and suggested an escalation of violence as well as a show of strength after their recent unification with al-Qaida.

Abu Mus'ab al-Wadoud, the leader of the GSPC, made a statement officially changing the organization’s name on Jan. 26, 2007. This statement, which appeared on the group’s website, read, “We had wished to do this from the first day we joined [al-Qaida] but we wanted the permission of Sheikh Osama [bin Laden], may God protect him. This obstacle has now been removed.” Al-Wadoud’s announcement came after al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a statement on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, announcing the merger between the two groups. According to al-Wadoud, the official renaming of the GSPC was intended to prove “the sincerity of the ties between the mujaheddin in Algeria and the rest of their brothers in al-Qaida.”

Some journalists and experts initially saw the change in the group’s name as a superficial move. They pointed to a lack of evidence to prove that more intrinsic operational changes were taking place. However, the tactical coordination, scale and planning surrounding the recent bombings in Algeria suggest that the former-GSPC is growing in operational sophistication and ability. Like the December 2006 attack against Halliburton affiliate Brown & Root-Condor (BRC), whose employees were shot at and targeted by a bomb while driving past in two vehicles, the recent attacks also had al-Qaida “trademarks.” Previously, attacks on American civilians and companies were rare (the French, being the former colonial rulers of Algeria, attracted most of the GSPC’s attentions). As such, a shift can be discerned, with not just French, but American and Western influence being specifically targeted. Choosing BRC as a target was also symbolically relevant as the company is working in the oil and gas industry, building production facilities as a subsidiary of Halliburton, which is the largest American multinational company involved oilfield services. In a communiqué released on Jan. 22, 2006, the GSPC identified BRC as the intended target and specifically accused France and the United States of stealing oil and natural gas belonging to the ummah, or community of believers.

AQIM Historical Background

The GSPC was founded in 1996 by dissidents within the Armed Islamic Group (GIA); however, it separated from the latter group in 1998. Former GIA regional commander Hassan Hattab founded the new organization after a disagreement about the targeting of civilians in their campaign. Hattab wanted to establish a group that would shy away from what he and a number of other members saw as an unpalatable practice. According to some sources, over 100,000 men, women and children were killed by the GIA between 1992 and 2000. This prompted a huge loss of public sympathy for the group, allowing the nascent GSPC to quickly gain popular support and attract new members, many of whom preferred to exclusively focus on targeting the government and security forces. Despite this rhetoric, high profile civilian targets were on the agenda in 2001, when the GSPC plotted to attack the Paris-Dakar Rally, an off-road race traveling through various countries in the Maghreb. Allegedly, it was the GSPC that abducted a group of 32 European tourists in 2003. Moreover, the group is suspected of being involved in a number of other attacks against Algerian civilians or their property, although the allegations were never confirmed because the GSPC did not claim responsibility for the attacks.

Because of its relative restraint with regard to targeting civilians, the GSPC received more support from al-Qaida – who, at the time, saw the GIA’s unremitting violence towards civilians as counter productive – and soon proved itself a formidable competitor to the GIA. Before long, the GSPC was able to take-over the GIA’s external networks in Africa and Europe.

Nabil Sahraoui assumed the leadership of GSPC in mid-2003 after Hattab disappeared, leaving many to think that he had been killed. Sahraoui’s tenure as GSPC leader ended in June 2004 when he was killed by Algerian security forces. He was replaced by Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud, who continues to lead the organization. However, a deep split within the GSPC diminished al-Wadoud’s control, with a part of the organization breaking off to form the Free Salafist Group in February 2004.  

Al-Qaida’s Hidden Hand?

Al-Qaida’s link with GSPC predates the terrorist attacks on America of Sept. 11, 2001. Indeed, Osama bin Laden’s organization has always had a subtle presence within the Algerian group, largely because many GSPC members were combatants in the Afghan war against the Soviets. Allegedly, Hattab was encouraged by al-Qaida to splinter off from the GIA and create the GSPC with the funding that bin Laden’s group provided him. However, in a carefully worded interview in 2005, Hattab denied that there were any links between his organization and al-Qaida during his tenure as leader – despite an earlier claim that cited his departure from GSPC as a result of ideological disagreements stemming from Bin Laden’s increasing influence over the group.

The GSPC has been designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. Department of State since 2001. The Algerian group is a Salafist Sunni movement with a Wahhabist orientation, an ideology rooted in a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran. Although one can argue that the group’s objectives have changed now that it has become more pan-Islamist and has solidified al-Qaida’s world view within its own mission objectives, but its primary goal to establish an Islamic state in Algeria still remains at the forefront of its campaign.

While unifying with al-Qaida may benefit the GSPC, any association with bin Laden’s organization is obviously not without its risks. For instance, when, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in America, Hattab espoused al-Qaida-like rhetoric, threatening that the GSPC would strike European and American interests if they attacked Middle Eastern countries or disabled their networks, the Algerian organization’s assets were frozen under U.S. Executive Order 13224.

Considered alongside increased arrests by Algerian authorities and closer ties with the pan-Islamist ideology of al-Qaida, it could be perceived that the organization is spreading itself too thin to pursue its original goal of installing an Islamic state in Algeria. However, this is made less significant when considering that al-Qaida will most likely provide the assistance AQIM needs to carry out new attacks in Algeria and abroad.

GSPC Activities

Much of the GSPC’s activities outside Algeria revolve around the black market economy, which it exploits to fund itself. Smuggling (mostly cigarettes, drugs, arms and vehicles), money laundering, extortion, kidnapping, and racketeering across the neighboring borders of Mauritania, Niger, Libya, Chad and Mali have been the traditional methods used by the group, which has also received donations from private donors.

Integral to the group’s network is their terrorism training cycle, which churns out fighters that can be moved between the Maghreb and other operational theaters, such as Iraq. Terrorists train in AQIM-run camps, which, unlike the fixed training camps of Afghanistan, are mobile with the ability to disperse quickly. Although gaining tactical prowess as operatives for AQIM is the main mission of these mobile training camps, another significant benefit is the solidification of organizational ties between different Maghreb groups as they try to amalgamate under one umbrella.

The Implications of the AQIM-al-Qaida Linkage

All of this could have serious implications for international security as al-Qaida and the AQIM take advantage of their extensive network and export operatives to the European continent and the United States. In January 2007, French intelligence produced a dossier which highlighted the possibility of a terrorist attack within France during the elections in April and May 2007. The purpose of the attack would be to influence the outcome of the elections as the Madrid bombings did in 2004. Both al-Qaida and the former GSPC are cited as possible sources of threat, due to communiqués from both groups, which state that France is a viable target.

The former GSPC already presented itself as a threat even before its official amalgamation with al-Qaida. Terrorist cells and plots by AQIM or its affiliates have been foiled in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Britain and the Netherlands. Plots included attacks on the G-8 summit in Genoa, on a Christmas market in Strasbourg and a plan to blow up U.S. embassies in Paris and Rome. Arrests of former-GSPC members in Italy have uncovered that a network of groups have used it and other European countries as platforms to provide logistical support, communications, propaganda mechanisms and weapons to radical Islamist cells in order to enable them to plan and initiate attacks across Europe.

In the United States three Algerians – Abdel Ghani Meskini, Ahmed Ressam, and Mokhtar Haouari – were caught before what became known as the “millennium plot” to bomb Los Angeles Airport could be executed. It is alleged that these individuals either belonged to the former GSPC or one of its affiliated groups. In April 2005, Kamel Bourgass, a GSPC member who was already convicted of murdering a British police officer in 2003 during a raid in England, was convicted for conspiracy to cause public nuisance by use of poisons and/or explosives. In this case it was suspected that Bourgass was trying to produce ricin, a lethal toxin produced from castor beans. Bourgass and Ressam both had connections with Abu Doha, who was sometimes called “the doctor”. Doha led GSPC’s London-based cell, set-up a Canadian cell, and was linked with the millennium and ricin plots.

Doha, who planned many of his operations from the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, which has become synonymous with Islamic extremism, ran terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and had strong ties to al-Qaida. He was also credited with being the mastermind behind the previously mentioned plot to bomb a Christmas market in Strasbourg. Doha has been in a UK prison since 2001 and is currently being held on an immigration charge because there is not enough evidence to continue to hold him under terrorism legislation. He was awaiting extradition to the United States when the case against him had to be dropped because a primary informant refused to testify.

Because of the links that the former GSPC and al-Qaida have shared since the former’s inception, the news announcing the merger between the two groups could merely be seen as bin Laden and Zawahiri placing an official stamp of approval on the Algerian group. That should not be deemed as an insignificant event, however, as both groups gain certain advantages from re-branding the GSPC as an al-Qaida affiliate. Some experts have stated that this recent evolution is a reaction to increasing improvements in Algerian counter-terrorism efforts. Such efforts, including the national “Peace and Reconciliation Charter,” counter-propaganda against Algerian terrorist groups, and the eradication of terrorist cells, have seen the GSPC relatively well-contained in recent times. The group’s re-branding of itself into an organization with a strong militant presence in both Africa and Europe is seen as a move around this. Others believe that the group needed an infusion of new blood in the form of money, material and support to continue to exist after suffering setbacks from the arrests of their members and in-fighting between the leadership.

Moreover, any GSPC partnership with al-Qaida is beneficial to both sides. The latter group gains the perception that its organization is growing while the GSPC is able to strengthen its previously weakened image, simply by associating itself with the more infamous group and possibly drawing more members to its cause. The GSPC also stands to gain financial and other support.  They may gain access to al-Qaida tactical expertise, something that would account for the higher level of sophistication and escalation suggested by the seven near-simultaneous attacks on Feb. 13, 2007, and the suicide bombings of April 11. Such incidents suggest the cross-fertilization of a typically al-Qaida tactic to AQIM, which had never used these methods before their union with bin Laden’s group.

Whether the escalation will persist steadily in Algeria will depend on a few factors, including (1) al-Qaida’s ability to provide or inspire more fighters to help sustain AQIMs offensive in the long term, (2) the strength of Algerian counter and anti-terrorist methods, and (3) whether a significant portion of the former GSPC will join the global jihad and export themselves to foreign theaters to fight. According to some, Algerian counter terrorism initiatives might prove to be a double-edged sword. By thwarting terrorism in Algeria the government could be inadvertently pushing the militants into the surrounding Maghreb countries and Europe, where they plot and stage attacks in both domestic and foreign operational theaters.

GSPC cells have been dismantled in Morocco and, allegedly, a team killed by Tunisian authorities in December 2006, was affiliated with the group. Regionally, the threat from the former-GSPC will be measured by its ability to continue exploiting the Western Sahara as an entry point into other Maghreb countries in order to perpetrate attacks and, also, their success in organizing themselves in a broader network of pan-African terrorist groups.

According to some sources, many AQIM members have joined the insurgency in Iraq (also dubbed ‘Terrorism University’), thus gaining a high level of expertise in terrorist tactics, lessons which they brought back to the Maghreb. The use of suicide bombers is the first indication of the proliferation of al-Qaida’s methods in Algiers and there is no reason to believe that AQIM will not export these tactics to the western arena. Indeed, statements by al-Wadoud underscore his desire to have the group used in any way that al-Qaida wishes. In any case, terrorist operatives from this group or its affiliates are likely to continue to appear as part of cells in both the European and American arena. With al-Qaida having infused the group with possible support and its label, GSPC is now obligated to support the other organization’s ideology and goals. This is not a positive development as it implies a deeper commitment of the group to support and orchestrate attacks not only in the Maghreb, but to contribute its forces to al-Qaida plots against western targets elsewhere. 

Sources

“Algeria: The GSPC Fingerprints on the Oct. 30 Bombings”, Stratfor.com,

http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=279388 , March 12, 2007.

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Financial Times, “Algerian Group Linked to Training Camps,” FT.com, www.ft.com/cms/s/e441e27a-b7e2-11db-bfb3-0000779e2340.html, Feb. 13, 2007.

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Reuters, “Algerian Militants now ‘al Qaeda,’ with Bin Laden’s OK,” CNN.com, http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/01/26/algeria.alqaeda.reut/, Feb. 14, 2007.

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Ulph, S., “GSPC Rival Leader Hattab Reclaims Title,” Terrorism Focus, The Jamestown Foundation, http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369829, Feb. 14, 2007. 

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