[MAGHAREBIA] Al-Qaeda's latest marketing ploy targets Maghreb youth. After suffering setbacks in other countries, the terror organization is using Mali and Syria to boost its ranks.From recruiting points in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, young people are being trained in northern Mali, armed in Libya and dispatched to Syria to join a raging war against al-Assad's regime.
But for many Syrians, these foreigners are fighting a war not to liberate them, but to impose an agenda alien to their own democratic aspirations.
The new foot soldiers from the Maghreb have gathered behind al-Qaeda propaganda campaign aimed at transforming the Republic of Syria into another Iraq and turning the Republic of Mali into a new Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda started looking at Syria as a substitute to establish an Islamic emirate in the heart of the Middle East. Through local affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra li ahl al-Sham (JAN), al-Qaeda was able to exploit international sympathy for the Syrian people to recruit new fighters.
But as former Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) leader Noman Benotman, points out, the vast majority of faceless myrmidons in Syria "do not view the conflict from an ideological perspective; they are only fighting to get rid of the al-Assad regime".
"Look at what they did in Yemen: they came in under the name of Ansar al-Sharia
...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends...
. Look at what happened in Mali, where al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb exists but behind a different facade and through other alliances," Benotman says.
"Al-Qaeda applied the same logic in Syria with Jabhat al-Nusra. It wants to use the current conflict as an incubation stage where it can work on building an organization," Benotman adds.
According to Abdullah al-Rami, a Moroccan researcher who specialises in Islamic groups, satellite channels helped speed the mobilisation by devoting extensive airtime to the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria. "In the spirit of general solidarity with the Syrian people, an appropriate environment was created to recruit fighters, whether they were civilians or jihadists," he said.
After hearing the call for foreign jihad from the mosque, TV or the internet, "young people from different Maghreb countries are fighting alongside these organised groups in Syria", confirmed Lies Boukraa, who heads the Algiers-based African Centre for Studies and Research on Terrorism (CAERT).
And they are dying there.
| Good. Clean that strain out of the gene pool. |
Even young Maghreb women are being drawn into the conflict in the wake of the recent fatwa from a Wahhabi holy man. Saudi Sheikh Mohamed al-Arifi allegedly said it was permissible for Islamist fighters marry for a few hours with girls as young as 14. While al-Arifi has denied being behind the fatwa, it has still been used to take advantage of young women.
But these young Maghreb fighters in Syria and their temporary brides, who thought they were helping liberate the Syrian people from an oppressive regime, may be in for a rude awakening. They are allying themselves with what many Syrians see as unwelcome interlopers.