Algerian terrorism: Domestic origins and international links

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

This article was downloaded by: [University of Oxford]On: 27 September 2010Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 773573598]Publisher RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

South African Journal of International AffairsPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t792221889

Algerian terrorism: Domestic origins and international linksMichael J. Willisa

a Associate Professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane,Morocco

Online publication date: 11 November 2009

To cite this Article Willis, Michael J.(2003) 'Algerian terrorism: Domestic origins and international links', South AfricanJournal of International Affairs, 10: 2, 63 — 76To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/10220460309545427URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10220460309545427

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial orsystematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug dosesshould be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directlyor indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t792221889

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10220460309545427

http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

63

Algerian Terrorism: DomesticOrigins and International Links

Michael J. Willis1

Introduction

Of all the states in Africa, Algeria is the one, with the possibleexception of Egypt, which has seemed most closely bound up

with the phenomenon of 'Islamist terrorism.' Firstly, the country hasendured over a decade of civil conflict that has cost more than 100 000lives. The vast majority of these deaths have been officially attributedto Islamist groups who have been held responsible for bombings,assassinations and massacres throughout the period. Secondly,as al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist cells and organisations areuncovered across Europe and North America, Algerians seem to figuredisproportionately as members of such groups.

This article aims to explore what the connection is between Algeria'sdomestic conflict and the wider pattern of Islamist violence that hasbeen witnessed across Africa, Europe, Asia and North America overrecent years. On a visit to the US in November 2001, in the wakeof the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington DC,Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika made quite clear his view ofthe nature of the link. He declared: 'Terrorism is one and indivisible.If we are going to combat terrorism, we must do it together.' He alsodeclared that Algeria was 'well-placed to share in the current painand suffering of the American people' indicating that both the US andAlgeria were major victims of this 'one and indivisible' terrorism.2

Although Washington made no formal response to this statement,the progressive strengthening of US-Algerian relations (notably in the

1 MICHAEL J WILLIS Ph.D. is Associate Professor at the School of Humanities andSocial Sciences at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco.

2 'Algerian President Says Terrorism Must be Fought Equally Worldwide.'AllAfrica.com, 5 November 2001.

Volume 10, Issue 2, Winter/Spring 2003

Downloaded By: [University of Oxford] At: 16:33 27 September 2010

64 South African journal of International Affairs

field of military co-operation and intelligence) together with President

George W. Bush's rhetoric of the necessity of building a 'global

coalition against terror' of those who opposed it, was evidence of

the fact that the US shared and supported Bouteflika's view. It is the

contention of this article, however, that this view is mistaken. There

is, in fact, no truly seamless link between the violence seen within

Algeria and the sort of international terrorism witnessed on September

11 2001. Although sharing many of the same characteristics, the two

are not fundamentally part of the same global pattern and struggle. The

two conflicts are, in reality, rather distinct with differing objectives and

stakes. Links certainly exist between the two, but they are far weaker

and more tenuous than is commonly believed or, indeed, suggested

by the Algerian and US governments.

Conflict and terrorism in Algeria

It is certainly true that the conflict in Algeria over the past decade has

witnessed substantial use of terrorism. Bombings, assassinations and

massacres — many of which have targeted civilians — have been a

prominent feature of the conflict and violence there. However, this

has not been the latest and bloodiest battleground on which militant

Islamism has sought to extend its power and influence across the

globe. The Algerian conflict finds its origins in much more specific

domestic causes. Specifically, there was the Algerian military's

decision in January 1992 to abandon Algeria's nascent experiment

with multiparty elections and political liberalisation. This decision

unleashed a wave of resentment from the Algerian populace that

had little to do with external or international factors. Popular anger

at the precipitous end brought to political liberalisation merely

added to existing widespread grievances over increases in poverty,

unemployment, and housing shortages due to official mismanagement

and corruption over decades.

The resort to the use of violence, including terrorism, against the

regime from mid-1992 similarly also owes much, arguably, to

Algeria's own bloody and violent history, in which terrorism played

a significant role. Not only did the nationalist Front de Libération



Willis: Algerian Terrorism 65

Nationale (FLN), that led the struggle for independence from 1954to 1962, employ terrorist techniques in its campaign to end Frenchcolonial rule in Algeria, but extreme violence was also employed bythe French colonial authorities in their own battle against the FLN.Moreover, it is often forgotten that some of the worst incidents ofterrorism in Algeria during this period were the work of extremistpieds noirs (European settler) organisations such as the Organisationde l'Armée Secrète (OAS) which mounted a huge and indiscriminatecampaign of killing and bombings in a last-ditch attempt to stave offAlgerian independence in 1961-62.3 Similarly, recent evidence hasshown that a significant part of the terrorism that has occurred inAlgeria over the past decade may well be the work of elements alliedto and part of the Algerian regime rather than radical Islamist groupsas had been initially thought.4

All of this is not to say that Islamist groups have not been responsiblefor acts of terrorism. Islamist terrorism was arguably first witnessedon Algerian soil in the 1980s with the activities of a group led byMustapha Bouyali, an FLN veteran of the liberation struggle, whichwas responsible for a string of hit and run attacks against the regimein the mid-1980s in protest at the supposed impiety of the Algerianstate.5 Later in the decade, elements thatadvocated the use of violencein certain circumstances were incorporated into the Islamic SalvationFront or Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), the Islamist party createdduring the period of political liberalisation of 1989 to 1992. SaidMekhloufi, a member of the party's majlis shura, or ruling council,wrote a pamphlet in early 1991 that argued that it was necessary touse counter-terror against the population in order to overcome and

3 For a full account of the OAS's campaign see Henissart P, 'Wolves in the City: TheDeath of French Algeria', London; Hart Davis, 1970.

4 For full accounts of these allegations see Yous N, 'Qui a Tué à Bentalha?: Algérie:Chronique d'un Massacre Annoncé', Paris; 'La Découverte', 2000, which is thetestimony of a survivor of a massacre in September 1997; also Souadia H, 'La SaleGuerre: Le Témoignage d'un Ancien Officier des Forces Speciales de l'ArméeAlgérienne', Paris; 'La Découverte', 2001, which is the testimony of a former specialforces officer.

5 For fuller details see Willis M, 'The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A PoliticalHistory', New York: New York University Press, 1997, pp.71-72 and 81-82.

Volume W, Issue 2, Winter/Spring 2003


66 South African Journal of International Affairs

counter-balance the existing terror that the state used against the

population and which forced people to support the state.6

Mekhloufi and his supporters were ejected for their radical views fromthe ma/7/5 shura of the FIS in July 1991, but these ideas were carriedthrough to the period following the cancellation of elections and theoutlawing of the FIS (which was poised to win the elections) in early1992. More radical groups such as elements of the shadowy ArmedIslamic Group or Croupe Islamique Armée (GIA) used a similar logic tojustify their use of violence against any group, including journalists andpetty functionaries that helped the regime. Ultimately this argumentdeveloped into a straightforward 'them-and-us' dichotomy that basicallystated that anyone who was not explicitly and actively supportive ofthe jihad against the regime was, by implication, a supporter of theregime and thus a legitimate target. The use of violence thus served thepurpose of forcing people to choose sides in the conflict.7

It should be stressed, however, that this logic was not shared by all oreven most of the various Islamist groups that established themselvesto mount armed opposition to the regime after 1992. Many groups,particularly those closely allied to the political leadership of the formerFIS, were opposed to the use of indiscriminate violence. They arguedthat civilians were not legitimate targets, the only truly legitimate targetsbeing members of the police and army together with senior figures inthe regime. This line was followed by groups such as the MouvementIslamique Armé (MIA), the Armé Islamique du Salut (AIS) and the stilloperational Croupe Salafite pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPQ.8

These groups were concerned that indiscriminate terrorism (such as abomb planted by Islamists at Algiers airport in August 1992) alienatedordinary people.9 Moreover, as many of the surviving political

6 Martinez L, 'The Algerian Civil War 1992-1998', London: Hurst & Co, 2000, p.207.7 Ibid, p.208.8 The AIS (which incorporated the MIA) formally agreed to a ceasefire with the regime

in October 1997 before formally disbanding in early 2000. This was done in the,eventually mistaken, expectation that the regime would make some concessionstowards rehabilitating the FIS. The GSPC was formed from elements that believedthe AIS had been deceived into disarming.




leadership of the FIS argued, such terrorism would also alienate theinternational community, particularly in the West, whose supportwould be essential in the event of the FIS eventually coming to power.10

Indeed, the awareness that extreme violence, especially from Islamists,would alienate Western countries has been used by the Algerian regimein their propaganda and probably also explains any responsibility theregime may have for the acts of terrorism themselves.

Early international links

Although Algerian Islamism, and the violence practised by groupswithin it, has domestic origins and objectives, it has had externallinks to radical and violent trends beyond the country's frontiers. Theemergence and expansion of Islamist movements in Algeria was part ofa global trend in the Muslim and Arab worlds that became increasinglypronounced from the 1970s. In fact, a powerful Islamist movementemerged much later in Algeria than it did in most other Arab states.As a result, many of the early influences on Algeria's various Islamistorganisations came from beyond the country's frontiers.

Early contacts with more radical trends in the Arab world camethrough the country's post-independence Arabisation programme.This not only brought members of foreign Islamist groups to Algeria asteachers of Arabic, but also put the religiously conservative in Algeriain touch with the growing amount of more radical literature beingproduced in Arabic most notably the works of the Egyptian SayyidQutb.11 Improvements in travel and communication from the 1970ssimilarly brought more extreme Islamist ideas into Algeria throughliterature, and particularly cassette tapes of preachers, imported orbrought back by those going on religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

9 Willis, p.272.10 Ibid, pp.379-380.11 Sayyid Qutb was a leading figure in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who wrote a

number of very influential texts in the 1950s and 1960s that expounded a religiousrationale for rebellion and the use of violence against the state. Fundamentally Qutbargued that most Muslim countries and their governments had fallen back into apre-lslamic (jahiliyya) condition and thus should be overthrown by pious Muslims.




The Iranian revolution of 1979 had an important psychological impacton Algeria's Islamists as it did on Islamists everywhere. It showed thatit was possible for an Islamist movement to seize power through apopular revolution. In Algeria, the Iranian revolution had the effectof speeding.up the process of transforming what was an essentiallyconservative movement into a much more radical one. In fact, thesignificant amounts of money that began to flow to Algeria's variousIslamist movements in the 1980s from Saudi Arabia — from boththe government as well as wealthy individuals — was largely due toSaudi concerns that revolutionary and Shiite ideas might take rootin Algeria.12 In reality, the intensely Shiite character of the IslamicRepublic that was established in Iran following the revolution meantthat most Islamist movements did not take it as a role model and theinfluence of Iran was strictly limited in Algeria as it was in most of therest of the Sunni Muslim world.13

Of far greater long-term influence and significance was the conflictthat developed in Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion ofthat country in 1978. The Afghans' resistance to the Soviets had aparticular resonance in Algeria as the country that had mounted thelongest and bloodiest campaign in the Muslim world to rid itself ofcolonial control. Significant numbers of Algerians — estimates varybetween several hundred and a few thousand — left as volunteers forAfghanistan in the early 1980s. The vast majority of these volunteerssurvived the conflict and began to drift back to Algeria during the 1980sas the conflict in Afghanistan wound down, culminating in the Sovietmilitary withdrawal of 1989. However, the volunteers who returnedto Algeria during the course of the 1980s had been substantiallychanged by their experiences in central Asia in two particular ways.Firstly, most had been enrolled in the Arab Mujahideen units that haddrawn together radical Arab Islamist volunteers from across the Arabworld and which consequently served as a hothouse for the most

12 Virtually all Saudi funding of the FIS came to end following the party's decision (dueto popular pressure rather than ideological considerations) to adopt a strongly pro-Iraqi line in the Gulf Crisis of 1990-91.

13 Willis, pp.89-92; 150-151.




extremist Islamist ideas. Secondly, volunteers received in Afghanistan

not only a rationale for the use of violence but, more importantly,

weapons training and battlefield experience to carry it out. Although

the numbers of these returning Afghans was, in relative terms, quite

small, the impact they had on the dress and mores of certain areas

they returned to in Algeria was noticeable. The mosque in Belcourt,

the poor district of Algiers in which a large proportion of the returning

volunteers congregated, became known locally as Kabul.14

The FIS and the radical fringe

The creation of the FIS in 1989, following the introduction of a new

multiparty constitution by President Chadii Benjedid, channelled the

energies of Algeria's Islamists into legalist strategies and away from

the temptations of violence. Nevertheless, the party brought together

a wide cross-section of groups and opinions including figures who

had been associated with Mustapha Bouyali and even some former

Afghan volunteers. Two members of the party's majlis shura, Said

Mekhloufi and Kameredine Kherbane, had served in Afghanistan,

with Kherbane, a former military pilot, having had a senior position

in the Arab Mujahideen there. However, as explained earlier, both

Mekhloufi and Kherbane were expelled from the party in July 1991 for

advocating the development of an armed wing for the party.15 A month

earlier, following street protests by the FIS, the Algerian authorities

had conducted a sweep of radical Islamist groups (many not formally

allied to the FIS) and arrested several hundred individuals including

large numbers of former Afghan volunteers from the Belcourt district.

However, throughout these events, links between the FIS and Islamist

organisations outside the country, particularly those of a more radical

orientation, seem to have been minimal.'6

14 Ibid, pp.92-93; 206-207.15 Kameredine Kherbane has claimed that he and Mekhloufi were only expelled after

pressure had been exerted on the FIS leadership by the Algerian security services.He also claimed that the advocacy of an armed wing for the party was for solelydefensive purposes. Author's interview with Kameredine Kherbane, London, 28June 1997.




The post-1992 conflict

The abandonment of the electoral process by the Algerian regimeand the outlawing of the FIS led to the coming to the fore of thoseIslamist elements, both inside and beyond the FIS, that advocated theuse of violence to achieve Islamist ends. Prominent among these wereformer comrades of Mustapha Bouyali from the 1980s together withthose former Afghan volunteers that had survived the security sweepsof the summer of 1991. These elements were the first to put togetherarmed resistance to the regime in the Winter/Spring of 1992 throughthe formation of armed groups.

Nearly from the outset there were disagreements between the variousarmed groups as to the objectives and the methods of the armedresistance. Some advocated that the struggle should be aimed atpressuring the Algerian regime to re-legalise the FIS and restart theelectoral process halted in 1992. Others argued that the electoralroute was finished and that a direct overthrow of the regime by armedforce was the only way forward. On methods, some argued that onlymembers of the security forces should be attacked, whilst others (asseen earlier) believed that anyone not supportive of the jihad was alegitimate target. A third dispute emerged over whether the resistanceshould seek support from beyond Algeria's frontiers in the struggle.Some factions argued that support should be sought from wherever itcould be found. By contrast, other groups, notably the more nationalistjazarist faction of the FIS, clung to the traditionally nationalistic view ofmany Algerians that outside help and interference was problematic andthat this was an essentially Algerian struggle to be fought by Algeriansthemselves.17 These various differences of opinion were not resolvedand as a result the armed resistance became increasingly fragmentedwith different groups espousing different methods and objectives. Theyranged from those groups (such as the AIS) that sought to combat only

16 Hussein Amin, Egyptian Ambassador to Algeria from 1987 to 1990, claims to havereceived reports in June 1990 from Egypt's intelligence services of some contacts havingbeen established between members of the FIS and the radical Egyptian organisationsJammat Islamiyya and Al-Jihad. Author's interview, Cairo, 13 June 1994.

17 Willis, p.304.




the security forces with the objective of forcing the regime to negotiateand re-legalise the FIS, to those (such as elements of the GIA18) whosought the overthrow of the regime through indiscriminate violenceaimed at terrorising the population into supporting the struggle.

Internationalising the struggle

The armed Islamist groups inside Algeria from 1992 had the clearlydefined objective of removing the Algerian regime either by force orthrough the restoration of the FIS and the electoral process. It is importantto note that these were specifically domestic and Algerian objectives.

The Algerian conflict and the terrorism it generated assumed overtime an international dimension through two different ways. Firstly, itoccurred through the co-ordinated attempts by elements of the armedresistance to raise money and weapons abroad for the support of thestruggle inside the country. Secondly, it manifested itself throughterrorist attacks that occurred against targets in France that appeared tobe in retaliation for what was seen to be the robust French support forthe regime in Algiers. In specific terms, the first of these involved figuressuch as Kameredine Kherbane touring Europe to make contact withold acquaintances from the Afghan war in an effort to raise funds andmoney. These efforts were intensified following official clampdownsinside Algeria on the supply of arms.19 The second of these involvedincidents such as the hijacking of an Air France Airbus in December1994 and the explosion of bombs in Paris in 1995 and 1996 althoughresponsibility for the latter was uncertain and laid by some at the doorof Algerian military security as a means of manipulating French publicand government opinion.20

The important thing to notice about both of these aspects of theinternationalisation of the conflict was that they were, like the internal

18 The true identity of the GIA is extremely murky. There is substantial evidence tosuggest that parts of the organisation have been infiltrated, manipulated and evenrun by the Algerian security services. See Souadia, op cit.

19 Labévière R, 'Les Reseaux Européens des Islamistes Algériens: Entre Déshérence etReconversion', Les Cahiers de l'Orient: Algérie: Les Nouveaux Islamistes DeuxiemeTrimestre 2001, No.62, pp.134-135.




conflict, fundamentally focused on influencing developments inside

Algeria. Kherbane and others were seeking money and arms to

channel into the armed struggle to strengthen its challenge to the

Algerian regime, whilst the attacks in France were aimed at reducing

strong French support for the regime against which they were

battling. Thus the use of terrorism both inside and outside of Algeria

had specifically Algerian objectives. It was not aimed at the West,

Israel, Christianity, Judaism or, most importantly, the US. Indeed, a

notable feature of Islamist movements in Algeria in particular, and

the Maghreb in general, during the 1980s and most of the 1990s

was the absence in their literature of rhetorical hostility towards the

US whose involvement and interest in the struggle in Algeria was

negligible during the 1990s. A survey of literature in this period

reveals that most of the Algerian Islamists' animosity was directed

at domestic leaders and the external power judged to be sustaining

them: France.21

International terrorism, al-Qaeda and Algeria

Given the fact that even the international aspects of terrorism both

within and outside Algeria seemed to focus specifically on Algeria

itself, it is worth discovering what connection exists between this

terrorism and the international terrorist networks, such as al-Qaeda,

which have included in their ranks significant numbers of Algerians.

The truth is that the connection is really rather tenuous and certainly

not the close one suggested by Bouteflika and many observers in the

media.

Those links that do exist take two main forms. Firstly, the cancellation

of the elections in Algeria and the clampdown against the FIS in 1992

led to large numbers of Algerian Islamists fleeing abroad. There they

came into contact with other Islamists who, whilst supporting their

struggle in Algeria, viewed it as part of a much broader international

20 The Observer (London), 9 November 1997.21 Willis, 'Islamic Movements and the West: Evolving Attitudes and Relationships' in

Saqar M & A Al-Bursan (Editors): Western Trends Towards Political Islam in theMiddle East, Middle East Studies Centre, Amman, Jordan, 2000.

Volume 7 0, Issue 2, Winter/Spring 2003



struggle against the West in general, and the US in particular. It islikely that a number of these former FIS supporters and members(particularly those who were younger, more junior and less welleducated) were persuaded of this new view. More senior former FISfigures such as Kherbane, reactivating their old Afghanistan contacts,often encountered similar opinions. Indeed, Islamist opinion,particularly in the eastern Arab world, had become progressivelymuch more hostile to the US from the end of the 1980s. This was fora number of reasons. For many Islamists, notably Osama bin Laden,the US presence in Saudi Arabia following its involvement in the GulfWar of the early 1990s was a major contributing factor to this newhostility.22 Individual Islamist groups in different states also beganto find their own reasons for opposing America. Groups such asHAMAS that emerged in the Palestinian territories in the late 1980sviewed US support for Israel as crucial to Israel's ability to remain inthe territories. In the same way, violent Islamist groups in Egypt thatbecame more active in the 1990s similarly saw the US's strong supportfor the Egyptian regime as a major barrier to the establishment of anIslamic state in Egypt.

A second suggested link between the conflict inside Algeria and theinternational terrorist networks is connected to the evolution of thenature of the conflict inside Algeria during the course of the 1990s.For various reasons, the conflict inside Algeria became increasinglyparochial with local armed Islamist groups primarily struggling forcontrol of local areas and particularly local economic interests. Thisprogressively stripped the Islamist struggle of its national and thusinternational dimension.23 The declining interest of Islamist leadersinside Algeria in the national and international dimensions of theirstruggle also deprived many Algerians living in exile of both avenuesthrough which to channel their aid and thus more broadly of a causeto support. As a result, many ideologically motivated Algerian Islamistsliving abroad were drawn into supporting other related causes such as

22 Bergen PL, 'Holy War Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden' London:Phoenix, 2002, Chapter 4.

23 Labévière, p. 146.




Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir. This in time led many to supportthe idea of an international Islamist jihad of the sort espoused byal-Qaeda.

The common factor in both of these cases seems to be the radicalIslamist circles that had developed abroad, particularly in Europe, inthis period. It was in these circles that Islamists from places such asSaudi Arabia and Egypt, who had a much more developed antipathytowards the US, were able to transfer their ideology and agenda toyoung Algerians who hitherto had viewed Algeria's leaders and theirFrench backers as the main enemy. Some of those involved in terroristnetworks appear to have become involved in such networks only aftertheir arrival in a foreign country, having left Algeria for personal andeconomic reasons rather than for political ones. For example, AhmedRessam, the Algerian caught trying to bring equipment for makinga bomb into Port Los Angeles in Washington state from Canada inDecember 1999 appears to have only drifted into extremist circlesfollowing his arrival in Montreal earlier in the decade.24

There have, nevertheless, been reports of links between al-Qaedaand the armed Islamist groups operating inside Algeria. In November2002 it was reported that Imad Abd Al-Wahid Alwan, a Yemeni withsignificant al-Qaeda connections, had been killed by Algerian securityforces near the town of Batna in the east of Algeria. However, althoughthe Algerian authorities claimed Alwan had been sent by al-Qaedato Algeria to evaluate the abilities of the CSPC armed group, mostwestern security services argued that links between the GSPC andal-Qaeda were unproven. Indeed, it is notable that the GSPC is not agroup that follows the ideology of total jihad and, unlike al-Qaeda, hasbeen quite explicit in its rejection of civilian targets. It is suggested thatsome elements in the Algerian military have an interest in promotingthe idea that there are links between al-Qaeda and the GSPC in orderto sabotage a rumoured potential ceasefire deal between the GSPCand Bouteflika.25

24 Dillman B, 'Round Up the Usual Suspects: Us Policy Towards Algeria and itsIslamists' Middle East Policy Volume VIII, No.3, September 2001, p.138.




Conclusion

In spite of the existence of some links between Algeria and internationalterrorism, the idea that the international terrorist violence of the sortorchestrated by al-Qaeda and the violence that has been occurring inAlgeria for the past decade is one and the same is mistaken. The ideais widely propagated because it enables countries such as Algeria topersuade Western countries, notably the US, that they are fighting thesame essential struggle against Islamist terrorism. This allows thesecountries to escape critical scrutiny about such issues as human rightsabuses in the pursuit of the supposed struggle against this terrorism.Moreover, it also enables them to recruit support from countries likeFrance and the US in the prosecution of this struggle, even though, ashas been seen, many of these conflicts are purely domestic in originand nature. To see terrorism as one essentially homogenous force withtentacles all over the world is over simplistic and ignores the fact thata lot of terrorism, even in the Muslim world, has very specific andparticular roots, largely unconnected with antipathy to the West andAmerica. However, it has clearly been in the interests of leaders likeBouteflika in Algeria and Ariel Sharon in Israel to claim this strongconnection.in order to recruit sympathy, support and allies in theWest.

Al-Qaeda is certainly an impressive and multinational organisationwith substantial international reach, but it is not responsible for allincidents of Islamist terrorism across the globe. During the 1 980s itwas commonly assumed by many observers and asserted by manygovernments in the region that all Islamism and Islamist violence in theMuslim world found its source in Tehran, the Islamic Republic beingthe co-ordinating centre of a global network of Islamist insurgencies.As has been seen in the case of Algeria, and is true for most of theMuslim world, Iran, in reality, had a limited impact on the rise ofIslamism and Islamist groups, its influence having been restricted to

25 Middle East International, 24 January 2003. Since his election in 1999, Algeria'scivilian president Bouteflika has sought, largely unsuccessfully, to free himself fromthe controlling influence of the country's all-powerful military leadership that haseffectively run Algeria since 1992.




those countries with Shiite populations.26 Because of its Sunni make-

up, al-Qaeda represents a much more genuine and credible claim to

regional influence, but it is far from universal and the parallel with Iran

is to some degree valid, particularly given the attractive notion of a co-

ordinating force behind all aspects of Islamism. It was also a convenient

way for governments in the region to blame their domestic problems

on an outside force and thus recruit foreign help in combating it.

In final conclusion, we can say that Algeria represents a classic caseof where a distinction needs to be drawn between terrorism thatoccurs to further very specific domestic ends and terrorism that is partof a wider international scheme. Some link does exist between thetwo, but the answer to resolving the Algerian input into internationalnetworks such as al-Qaeda lies in efforts to solve the domestic Algeriancrisis. This involves attempting to solve the problems of domesticeconomic decline and disintegrating political legitimacy that havefuelled violence and disillusionment and scattered large numbers ofradicalised and embittered young Algerians around the globe who arethen easy prey to the ideology of groups such as al-Qaeda.

26 This did not stop the Algerian government from very publicly breaking off diplomaticrelations with Iran in 1993 officially because of the Islamic Republic's supposedsupport for the armed Islamic groups. The fact that little evidence could be foundto support this claim indicates that the move was designed more for domestic andinternational consumption to give the impression that Algeria's deepening conflictwas fundamentally the work of outside forces.



Algerian terrorism: Domestic origins and international links

Documents

Transcript of Algerian terrorism: Domestic origins and international links