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| Africa: North |
| GSPC issues new threat |
| 2005-03-22 |
| The main Algerian rebel group warned Arab leaders that their peoples would wreak revenge on them for obeying US and Israeli orders. The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat said in an internet statement on the eve of an Arab summit in Algiers that the Arab rulers were apostates, illegitimate and incapable of restoring the pride and dignity of the Arab nation. The group, known by the acronym GSPC, is the largest rebel movement still fighting the Algerian government in a waning civil war which began after the military cancelled elections in 1992. It rarely issues statements on international politics. The statement, dated Sunday and signed by GSPC leader Abou Mossab Abdelouadoud, said: "The apostate rulers ... have proved at every catastrophe that they are the roots of affliction and the symbols of treachery. They are the seed of collaboration sown by the Ziono-Christian alliance in the body of the nation. The downtrodden nation ... is marching with firm steps to wreak revenge on you and avenge the blood of its sons whom you have offered as sacrificial victims to America. " The statement did not make any specific threats against the summit but the Algerian authorities have deployed thousands of police and set up roadblocks in Algiers to secure the meeting. It hailed other militant Islamists around the world, including al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born insurgency leader in Iraq. Its authenticity could not be confirmed. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |