That Al Qaeda - winning hearts and minds in Algeria

Or is it just killing them???

The New York Times reports the Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsiblity for near-simultaneous explosions of seven bombs yesterday in the Algerian capital of Algier. The attacks left six dead and more than a dozen wounded.

As the Times reports, this was the worst terror attack in months by "North Africa's most active terror group." This Qaeda outfit was previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat - or more commonly by its French acronym, the GSPC.

Recall that in September, as the Washington Post reported, Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's assistant, released a video on the Internet heralding the "great news" that Al Qaeda had joined forces with this group. "Our brothers," he said, "will be a thorn in the necks of the American and French crusaders and their allies, and a dagger in the hearts of the French traitors and apostates."

Since 2003, as the Post reported at the time, the GSPC the had "emerged as an umbrella for radical Islamic factions in neighboring countries, sponsoring training camps in the Sahara and supplying streams of fighters to wars in Iraq and Chechnya, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts in Europe and North Africa."

Recall that the jihad in Algeria has resulted in an estimated 200,000 deaths since its onset in 1991. The GSPC was ironically founded as a splinter group, a breakaway branch of the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, which was famous for its massive slaughtering of any Algerian who didn't subscribe to their harsh reading of Islam or who refused to take up arms against the government.

The GIA's methods of elimination were brutal even by jihadist standards. A favorite practice was to enter a village and slit the throats of anyone deemed to be apostate - i.e., anyone who didn't enthusiastically embrace their views. Even bin Laden was reportedly appalled by the group's capacity for gratuitous violence against fellow Muslims.

Because of its roots in the GIA, the GSPC was not apparently entirely trusted by Al Qaeda. But the distrust began to melt away after the group started to court Bin Laden. For example, on the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Post reports, a leader of the GSPC posted a statement on the Internet saying: "We strongly and fully support Osama bin Laden's jihad against the heretic America." There were other such adoring statements until finally Al Qaeda succumbed to the GSPC's overtures and consented to a merger with the group in September.

As Algerian terrorism expert Liess Boukraa told the Post at the time of the "great news," "The leadership of al-Qaeda doesn't have a secure base left anywhere else in the world, so al-Qaeda needs the GSPC at the logistical level. The GSPC needs al-Qaeda at the ideological level."

Or as another Algerian terrorism expert, Mounir Boudjema, assessed the situation: "In terms of strategy, they have lost. The population doesn't want to have them anymore. The people in the villages refuse to give them blankets or water or food. The whole logistical network is falling apart."

I wonder if this latest attack will make them any more popular with their base in Algeria.

In a study released in March by the Saudi National Security Assessment Project on the foreign fighters in Iraq, it was found that some 22 percent were Algerian.

When news of these findings came out, I and my coauthor of Jihad and International Security (Palgrave, 2007) assumed that this was because the Algerian jihadists had worn out their welcome at home because of what was perceived as their senseless slaughtering of innocents.

As if what's now happening in Algeria isn't bad enough, the Post further reports that an Algerian underground in Europe is recruiting large numbers of Tunisians, Moroccans, Syrians and other extremists, according to Xavier Raufer, a French terrorism specialist. A cell linked to the GSPC was arrested in Casablanca in March on charges they were planning to attack a church and a subway system in Italy.