Terror group 'may tap into jihad'

2006-11-10 09:55

Algiers - An Algerian rebel group's recently confirmed allegiance with al-Qaeda shows the outfit is looking to exploit international links after being cornered by security forces at home, say analysts.

Experts who had long followed the security situation in Algeria said the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French acronym, GSPC, was not capable now of the kind of large-scale attacks on Western targets that al-Qaeda called for - but the GSPC could try to expand into such attacks to stay afloat.

Hamida Ayachi, who had reported extensively on Algerian militant groups, said: "I think the GSPC are now in the process of playing their last card ... that is to say the al-Qaeda card."

Al-Qaeda announced its union with the GSPC for the first time in a video posted on the internet in September to mark the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Propaganda campaign

Al-Qaeda's No 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, said he hoped the alliance would work against Western interests, singling out the United States and France, which colonised Algeria.

The GSPC had pledged its allegiance to al-Qaeda as early as 2003, and reaffirmed this position in a statement dated September 13.

Ayachi said the shift in strategy so far appeared to be a propaganda campaign carried out largely on the internet, aimed at gaining credibility, recruits and funds.

The GSPC was the only substantial group left from an Islamic insurgency that was triggered in 1992 after the Algerian army stepped in to prevent a likely election victory by the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front.

GSPC 'claims responsibility'

The group was now thought to number just a few hundred fighters concentrated in the mountainous northeastern region of Kabylia.

Despite their small numbers, scattered attacks blamed on the GSPC were reported nearly every week.

On October 29, two bombs were set off in booby-trapped vehicles at police stations outside Algiers, killing three people and injuring 24 others. The GSPC claimed responsibility.

The ranks of the GSPC had gradually been whittled down by security crackdowns and amnesties. The group had lost public support for its cause against the Algerian state.

Liess Boukra, an Algiers-based terrorism analyst, said: "The 'jihadi' (`holy warrior') internationalist currents in the GSPC have won out against the currents that were exclusively focused on Algeria."

He said: "The GSPC aspires to playing a more important regional role because it has rather exhausted its capital on the national level."

Analysts said that militants from Middle Eastern countries had reportedly been arrested and killed in Algeria, and Algerians had participated in the Iraqi insurgency - both of which suggest the GSPC already had operational international links.

- AP