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| Africa: North |
| GSPC may be down, but it ain't out |
| 2005-01-26 |
| Algeria's top Islamic rebel group, which has ties to al Qaeda, is reeling from the arrests and killings of hundreds of members, but a deadly ambush on a military convoy shows it is far from eliminated. The Jan. 3 attack by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) killed 13 soldiers and five militiamen, according to diplomats, and may mark the emergence of a dangerous new leader. A U.S. military source familiar with the region said it looked like the work of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a GSPC desert chief newly returned from hiding in northern Mali and keen to show that he is a force to be reckoned with. "Among all the GSPC folks that we know about, he's certainly the most active, certainly the most dangerous. He's the one that needs to be wrapped up next," the source told Reuters. The deaths last year of 321 rebels, most of them GSPC, will boost foreign investor confidence in the OPEC member's ability to crack down on Islamist militancy. In 2004, the army stepped up its military offensive and was helped with intelligence obtained from those who surrendered or were captured. "Security is improving gradually and obviously 2004 was quite a bad year for the GSPC, losing its leader and many followers," said Sarah Meyers, a Middle East and North Africa analyst for London-based risk consultant Control Risks Group. But it will be a long process to eradicate its cells." The security risk remains high, according to diplomats and security analysts, because of 300 to 500 armed and well-funded and trained rebels still operational across Algeria. Foreign firms and many embassies have heavy security. Despite the Jan. 3 ambush, Interior Minister Noureddine Zerhouni was upbeat in comments last week. He insisted the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a forerunner of the GSPC, had been dismantled and that "only a few pockets of GSPC terrorists remained" and would soon be crushed. "The battle is won but it's not over," he said on Jan. 12. The U.S. military source said the GIA, whose leader was recently arrested, was "on its last legs". But the GSPC, which is designated by the State Department as a terrorist group and pledged support to al Qaeda in 2003, would continue to pose a residual threat for some time, drawing on grievances from the past decade's violent conflict. He praised the "magnificent job" of the Algerian authorities against the group, which almost fell apart last year with the death of leader Nabil Sahraoui and the arrest of deputy Amar Saifi, known as "El Para", who was behind the kidnapping of 32 European tourists in the desert in 2003. The U.S. source said Algerian pressure against the GSPC had partly had —group has been significantly weakened and it will hurt their ability to carry out major attack against oil installations in the south or large-scale targets in the north. "But it will be more difficult for authorities to root them out in more remote areas because they are very skilled at carrying out attacks and then retreating to the mountains." President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's government hopes many of the rebels have tired of the war and want to surrender, but the GSPC's die-hard leadership has repeatedly warned their members against giving up. "No truce, no dialogue, no reconciliation and no peace with the enemies of God," GSPC spokesman Abou Yasser Siaf said in a statement on Jan. 6. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |