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2006-01-04 Africa North

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Posted by Fred 2006-01-04 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 My guess is that the hard boyz in question were captured (Abu Bilal is Albanian, so he wouldn't be eligible for the amnesty, and nobody forks over $20,000,000 in cash out of the goodness of their hearts) and that the Algerians are having some fun with the GSPC and the rest of al-Qaeda at their expense. If al-Albani was the GSPC's external ops chief, we might see the group's European and North African networks scrambling to cover their tracks if they think he's been flipped.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, in addition to being a GSPC big cheese, is also moonlights as a major smuggling chief and crime lord in the Sahel region. With el-Para out of the way, he seems to have taken over the GSPC's extra-Algerian operations in North Africa but it'll be interesting to see if his heart's into it. Wadoud might want to watch himself as well since the track record for GSPC leaders hasn't been so hot ever since Sahraoui was deposed.

All in all, I agree with Fred's earlier assessment that the GSPC, while maintaining a pretty good organization and command structure, is running low on cannon fodder thanks to the Pan-Sahel Initiative so al-Qaeda is trying to fold them, the Moroccan groups, and as many assorted jihadis as possible together under this new "al-Qaeda in North Africa" that the Moroccan hard boyz got in touch with Zark to get approval from Binny to launch.

Posted by Dan Darling">Dan Darling 2006-01-04 02:13|| http://www.regnumcrucis.blogspot.com]">[http://www.regnumcrucis.blogspot.com] 2006-01-04 02:13|| Front Page Top

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