Algerian terrorist group that U.S. military officials have called the No. 1 threat to security in Africa's Sahara region is losing ground, but recent arrests in Europe -- including a plot foiled by Italian authorities last month intended to outdo the attacks of September 11, 2001-- indicate the group has many terrorists ready to strike civilian targets. U.S. and European intelligence officials have evidence the Algerian terrorists, who call themselves the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC, as it is known by its French acronym), continue to recruit, train and finance North African jihadists to fight U.S.-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.The GSPC, on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations and estimated to have 300 members in Algeria, was formed in the late 1990s to overthrow the government in Algiers and create an Islamic state.
Algerian authorities cracked down on the group after attacks last summer that reportedly killed 40 soldiers from Algeria and Mauritania. The latest GSPC attack, a Dec. 24 bombing in Dellys, a northeast Algerian port, caused only one casualty. The unexpected surrender two days later of three ranking GSPC militants supports intelligence reports that the group's leadership in North Africa is fractured and on the run.