Risks, Threats and Advisory Briefing: Algeria

Опубликовано на EGF: 25.01.2010

by Публикация EGF

Intermittent clashes between government and Islamic militants evident

A steady stream of terrorist attacks and clashes between authorities and militants has continued to characterise the security landscape in Algeria in the beginning of 2010 and the latter phases of 2009. Last week (January 16), the emir of al-Qaeda's "Al-Arqam" cell, Abou Amin, was among five terrorists killed by Algerian security forces in Bejaia, according to local sources. During the same operation (near Tazmalt) a suicide bomber killed the Algerian army's regional commander and an intelligence officer. According to Algerian security sources, Bejaia regional commander, El Hadj Bouamama, a colonel from the DRS (Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité) and a local gendarme had pursued two terrorists to Allaghene after a nearby gun fight. When the officers approached the wounded fighter to assess his condition, he detonated an explosive belt hidden under his clothes, killing the two law enforcers. Recent army operations in the area between Tizi Ouzou, Boumerdes, and Bouira have reportedly forced armed groups to retreat eastward towards the Bejaia region of Kabylie.

Last month (December 25) a roadside bomb explosion killed one Algerian soldier and injured two civilians near Tizi-Ouzou, in what appeared to be a remotely-detonated blast targeting a National Army truck convoy in the village of Taboudoucht. The military trucks were reportedly part of an anti-terrorist operation in the Kabylie region. Two days earlier, another bomb exploded near Setif, killing one Algerian civilian and injuring three others. On December 17 Algerian security forces killed four armed terrorists in Bou-Saâda, after the alleged assailants were intercepted in their vehicle. More than 20 militants have been killed in December and November in different regions of Algeria.

Child suicide bomber thwarted

Many further terrorist suspects have been arrested by Algerian security forces and suicide bombings have been thwarted. Last month (December 21) at least six suspected terrorists were arrested Algiers, in what Algerian officials described as one of the "most important" operations undertaken in the capital city in recent years. The arrests predominantly took place in the Kouba and El Harrach suburbs of Algiers and the terror suspects included an imam at a mosque in Kouba. Earlier this month, an Algerian court convicted nine young men (some of whom were still in their teens) on charges of financing armed fighting groups in the Mascara region, after they were arrested in Mamounia some days earlier. Other members of the network continue to remain at large. Two other men were sentenced to prison terms by an Algiers court on charges of recruiting young men for Al Qaeda in Iraq. In August of last year, Algerian security services thwarted terrorists’ plans for a 13-year-old boy to perpetrate a suicide attack in Skikda during Ramadan. The child, Abou El Miaâd, reportedly assumed his father's name in 2005 when the senior El Miaâd – an Al Qaeda regional emir - was killed during Ramadan in a clash in Skikda. After the child’s mother and siblings surrendered to authorities in 2006 (as part of the National Reconciliation program), the boy was reportedly taken by a Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leader, Abdelmalek Droukdel, to be raised amongst armed fighters.

State clampdown on mobile telephony

In November, an Algiers court sentenced three Moroccans (Yacine Bouheltit, Bilel Elloui and Mohamed El-Hamedi) to three years in jail on terror related charges, who were apprehended after security services intercepted a mobile phone call during which Bouheltit asked a known Algerian terrorist for help in joining Al Qaeda in Iraq. It is worth noting that as of the start of 2010, anonymous mobile telephone chips are now classified as "sensitive equipment" in Algeria, pursuant to a new executive decree aimed at preventing terrorists from using telephony to communicate and conduct attacks. The government clamp down on mobile communications takes into account the fact that Algerian terrorists have "long benefitted from the anarchy that has reigned in recent years in the market for mobile telephony to conduct their attacks." Some 95 attacks have reportedly been carried out in Algeria over the last three years using anonymous phone chips.

Visible death toll amongst Algerian security personnel

As a result of the steady flow of violence taking place in Algeria, it should also be noted that the death toll amongst security personal has also been highly visible, the most flagrant incidents in recent months including:

As we wrote in our last report on Algeria, much of the current spate of violence being witnessed in the country is the result of an insurgency campaign being waged by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a terrorist organisation established in January 2007 following the merger of the Armed Salafist Group for Preaching Combat (GSPC) with the Al Qaeda. While the current spate of violence in Algeria is comparatively modest if taking into account the so called “national tragedy” which took place in the country during the 1990s (when civil war engulfed Algeria, resulting some 150,000 civilians deaths and a national insurgency involving many thousands of armed Islamic militants), a number of the attacks taking place in Algeria in recent months have been uncharacteristically deadly. Ambush attacks carried out by AQIM militants are relatively common insurgent operation in Algeria. However, the brazen raids which took place on June 17 and July 29, in which 19 and 14 security personnel lost their lives respectively, were the deadliest taking place in Algeria since a suicide bombing at a policy academy in Les Issers on August 19, 2008, in which 48 persons died.

AQIM operating as a rebranded version of the GSPC

While the June-July attacks in Algeria may not be directly comparable to recent twin-suicide bombings in central Baghdad (at least 3 taking place since August 2009: over 100 persons killed in hundreds more injured in each attack), security experts suggest that the comparatively high death toll (for Algeria) resulting from these attacks might imply the presence of an experienced operational commander or bomb-maker at AQIM, possibly having arrived in Algeria from Iraq or Pakistan. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that AQIM has received substantial attention from Al Qaeda core leadership during the course of 2009, urging the organisation to reach out beyond Algeria into the entire North African region. However, while kidnappings and attacks against locals and foreigners across the Maghreb and Sahel-Sahara region are becoming an evident part of AQIM’s modus operandi, it is not clear as to the degree that the organisation can emerge as a sophisticated transnational terrorist organisation and shed its image of a rebranded version of the GSPC, continuing on with its Jihad within the confines of the Algerian frontiers.

Uncertainty over AQIM’s capacity to project terror at regional level

Further, as Algerian Islamic militants continue to surrender to the Algerian authorities within the framework of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s promotion of the Charter for National Reconciliation, many experts feel that AQIM’s capacity to carry out sophisticated deadly attacks involving suicide bombers and large vehicle bombs (within Algeria) may be likewise limited. Its cause would not have been aided by last October’s arrest of Rial Mohamed, a chief recruiter of young terrorists, who turned himself in before the start of a huge security operation that led to the elimination of Hadjres Hocine, a terrorist leader in the region around Zemmouri. A recent online appeal for religious justification (for carrying out attacks) by Abdelmalek Droukdel, where the AQIM leader sent a letter to Jihadist mufti, Abu Mohamed Al Makdissi, asking for “clarifications” for the group’s terrorist activities, has been seized upon by local counter-terrorism specialists as a further sign of the group’s weakness.

It remains to be seen whether all of these signals equate to a decline in the significance of AQIM in Algeria, or whether, to the contrary, the group will benefit from the support of Al Qaeda core leadership and project itself as a transnational terror organisation at the trans-North African and Sahel-Sahara regional level. In the meantime, terror incidents continue to rattle Algeria’s security environment on a weekly if not a daily basis, elevating the country’s risk threat ratings and undermining its recovery from a brutal civil war and efforts to complete national reconciliation.

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