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January 10, 2007

France: Algerian Islamist Group Again Threatens National Interests

As we reported earlier:

The Algerian terror group GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) has long touted its connections to Al Qaeda. However, a video speech by Ayman al-Zawahiri, published on a jihadist website on September 11 2006, for the first time confirmed this from Al Qaeda's perspective. The video also said that the GSPC was being urged to attack France. Zawahiri also said that there would be new attacks against the Gulf and against Israel.

In the video, the deputy leader of Al Qaeda said: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC has joined al-Qaeda. This should be a source of chagrin, frustration and sadness for the apostates [of the regime in Algeria], the treacherous sons of France."

He said that GSPC should be "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders. We pray to God that our brothers from the GSPC succeed in causing harm to the top members of the crusader coalition, and particularly their leader, the vicious America."

French terror experts were taking the implied threats seriously. In September 2005 the GSPC's leader, Abu Mossab Abdelwadoud aka Abdelmalek Dourkda made in internet statement, in which he threatened France and Algeria. He mentioned France 15 times. He said: "France is our enemy number one, the enemy of our religion, the enemy of our community.

The GSPC evolved from a split in the Groupe Islam Armé (GIA), a faction which had carried out bombings in France which went on from August to a failed attempt at derailing a train in November 1995. Most of the bombings involved Metro stations in Paris.

In Algeria, the group has been active in 2006, and it has cells in several European countries. In Algeria there are several Islamist factions, which have been killing people since 1992, after the army prevented a democratically elected Islamist regime from taking power. A total of 150,000 to 200,000 people in Algeria have died as a result of Islamist violence. The majority were civilians.

On September 29 2005, the Algerian government offered a referendum to the people, to see if they wished to grant an amnesty to the Islamist groups. On October 1 less than a few hours after the results showed the public approved an amnesty, GSPC dissented. Abou Mossab Abdelouadoud (Abdelmalek Droukdel) announced on an internet site: "The Jihad will go on ... we have promised God to continue the Jihad and the combat."

24 hours after the announcement, three Algerian civilians were murdered. One of these, a 62-year old man, was decapitated.

Since the referendum there have been several high profile trials in France of GSPC members, and in Spain, a network of GSPC cells have been broken at varying locations across the country, from the Costa del Sol to Basque territory in the north. There have been arrests in Italy.

On September 14, 2006, the GSPC publicly affirmed its allegiance to Al Qaeda, in a website statement, which read: "We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... We will pursue our jihad in Algeria. Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes." The statement was signed by Abou Mossab Abdelouadoud (Abu Mossaab Abdelwadud).

The French Interior Ministry then stated that the comments by Ayman al-Zawahiri "confirmed the high level of threat against our country."

France was placed on a high state of alert since September 11 2006 announcement. Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, head of the DST (Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, the domestic anti-terrorism intelligence service), said on French radio: "For our Islamist adversaries, our country is frankly in the Western camp, the crusaders in their words, and we will be spared nothing."

Louis Caprioli, former assistant director of the DST who now works for Geos, said "The GSPC is losing speed and has suffered very significant losses in recent months." He said that some in Algeria had taken advantage of an amnesty deadline (before August 31). He also said that from the 800 combatants the GSPC was thought to have last year, only 500 still remain. He said that no operational cells had existed in France since the late 1990s.

However, Caprioli and others maintained that with the group now bonded officially with Al Qaeda, the terror threat against France was extremely high.

Anne Giudicelli, who works for the consultancy Terrorisc in Paris, said: "From now on, the links are official, legitimate, and they are taking part in the same combat.....The Americans have become harder to target domestically, so they are trying to widen the field of action and strike their allies."

Dominique de Villepin, the French Prime Minister, said after viewing the Zawahiri tape: "I have examined all the information we have at our disposal on the question, which confirms there is cause for concern. We must not lower our guard. There is indeed a situation of risk and we must be continually adapting our response. We must be extremely vigilant and attentive - as we have been now for several years."

Roland Jacquard, a French terror expert, said that the tape amounted to a fatwa against France. He said he thought an attack on French soil was likely. "I hope not, but I think we have the same level (of alert) as in London now. I think that probably they want to make something in the next month or in a few months," he stated.

Now, the GSPC has once again made a declaration of war against France, states Agence France Presse. A message from GSPC appeared on an internet site, urging Algerians to attack France.

The message, claiming to come from Abu Mussab Abdel Wadoud, GSPC's leader, stated: "Fight the nationals of France and the agents of the Crusaders occupying our land. Our fathers and our ancestors fought against the French Crusaders who were driven out in humiliation."

On Saturday, the daily newspaper al-Khabar announced that the head of GSPC had rejected the reconciliation deal offered by Algeria's president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and said he would wait for instructions from Al Qaeda before making "the next step".

Abdel Wadoud said then: "France which left through the door... is coming in through the window. America is also coming back through the door to share with France the spoils of our riches and control of our destiny, with the complicity of the thief of the house, Bouteflika."

Wadoud said that Bouteflika was "fighting against Islam under the banner of the leading heretic, the United States, and forging ties of friendship with the enemy of yesterday, France."

On Sunday, December 11, 2006, GSPC Islamists attacked two buses containing foreign oil workers at Bouchaoui, nine miles west of the capital, Algiers.

The oil workers were employed by Brown & Root-Condor, which is an affiliate of the US company Halliburton. The Algerian driver of one of the two buses was killed by a bomb, and nine workers were injured, including four Britons, an American, a Canadian and a Lebanese.

The US Embassy immediately gave out a Warden Notice to its citizens in Algeria, warning them to be on high alert and tighten their security procedures. About 800 US nationals live in Algeria, most of them employed in the oil/hydrocarbon sector.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at January 10, 2007 11:23 PM

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