The resurgence of the militant Islamist threat in Algeria
ALGERIA | Wednesday, 20 December 2006 | Views [1428]
At 17:30 local time on 11 December 2006, a security vehicle and a bus carrying foreign oil workers came under attack as they travelled from al Achour, Algiers, to Staoueli, western Algeria. The bus was hit by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) before the two vehicles came to a halt under small arms fire. The attack claimed the life of an Algerian driver and wounded four Britons, one American, a Canadian, two Lebanese and another Algerian. The men were employees of Brown Root Condor, a joint venture between the Halliburton subsidiary Kellog, Brown and Root (KBR) and Condor Engineering, an affiliate of Algerian state energy group Sonatrach. The attack underlines the continuing threat that militant Islamists pose to Algerian security and is perhaps indicative of an alarming tactical shift toward targeting Westerners in the country.
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat - SGPC) issued a statement late on 11 December claiming responsibility for the attack. The group, whose aim is to overthrow the secular Algerian government and establish an Islamist state, is essentially a splinter faction of the Islamic Army Group (Group Islamique Army – GIA). The SGPC broke away from its parent organisation in August 1998 and is currently led by Abu Musab Abel Wadoud (real name Abdel Malik Droukdel). The organisation has now surpassed the GIA in terms of both popularity and power, possessing somewhere in the region of 700 – 1000 guerrillas. The group traditionally operates in remote mountain areas in the north and in parts of the vast southern desert, and is believed to be heavily involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion to fund its activities. Tactically, it has favoured ambushes and the use of false road blocks to attack both military and civilian targets. The SGPC is the largest terrorist organisation in the North African state and poses a significant threat to peace and security in Algeria.
Ever since it’s founding the SGPC has been suspected of having close ties to al-Qaeda. Such suspicions were confirmed in September 2006 when the SGPC officially joined the al-Qaeda network. Although the connection between the two groups is now most likely nominal (i.e. opportunistic) rather than operational, it does suggest that the Algerian group has given up any short-term hope of overthrowing the state through popular rebellion and now just wants to target urban areas and Westerners in order to become part of the transnational jihadist movement.
The 11 December attack would be consistent with such an ideological readjustment. Although the organisation declared war on foreign citizens and companies in 2004, the SGPC had not struck a Western target for many years, preferring to focus its wrath on the Algerian security forces. This attack is perhaps indicative of a Western-centric targeting policy. If indeed this is the case, foreign individuals and companies in the country should exercise increased vigilance and caution. The attack also suggests that the militants are increasingly ambitious. The 11 December strike was particularly sophisticated, bold and well planned. The militants attacked the bus some ten kilometres west of Algiers in the upmarket district of Bouchaoui. This area has a high security profile and is home to several Algerian cabinet ministers, wealthy families, upmarket hotels and an international conference centre. The militants also displayed significant skill and confidence in evading the heavy security and in executing a relatively complex attack.
Although the incident represents a potential tactical shift, the attack is consistent with the steady escalation in SGPC activity that Algeria witnessed over the past few months. For example, on 26 November, ten soldiers were injured, three of them seriously, when the SGPC remotely detonated an IED under a military convoy in the region of Annaba, some 600km east of Algiers. And a week before that, three soldiers and two armed civilians were killed in an SGPC ambush in the Biska region. In total, some 50 people, 26 of them Algerian security force personnel, have died in clashes with the SGPC since the beginning of November.
If the SGPC has abandoned its long-term ‘local’ objectives and is pursuing the global jihadist cause, it is well positioned to wage such a campaign across North Africa and beyond. Although the organisation’s numbers were supposedly diminished after a series of amnesties were offered by the government (the last of which ended back in August 2006), the group has recently been bolstered by a successful recruiting campaign. Using jihadist propaganda emanating from Iraq, the organisation has been targeting large numbers of young unemployed men in Algeria. The group is also believed to have been actively recruiting experienced personnel from Northern Mali, Northern Mauritania and Northern Niger. The group’s expansion and the recent inclusion of battle-hardened operators will increase the group’s capabilities and possibly signal bolder, increasingly deadly and sophisticated attacks that will likely target the Algerian state and high-profile US, UK and French interests in the North Africa country. However, since the SGPC is known to have taken advantage of ‘human-smuggling routes’ into Europe and also possesses well-developed networks in neighbouring countries, the group may well strike at targets throughout the North African theatre and beyond.
All of this is a significant blow to the Algerian government. The Islamist insurgency in the country has raged since 1992, when the authorities cancelled elections after it became clear that an Islamic party was expected to win, and the subsequent conflict has cost over 150,000 lives. The government had hoped that its amnesties and legislation were robbing the insurgents of both economic and numerical support, and that international cooperation and sustained counter-terrorist operations were severely denting the insurgent’s capabilities. However, optimism that the country’s security environment is improving appears misplaced, with this latest attack an inconvenient reminder of Algeria’s fragile stability and a warning that significant risks remain.
Tags: travel safety, red24, algeria
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