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L'Algérie face à la menace d'Al-Qaida

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  • L'Algérie face à la menace d'Al-Qaida

    Ci dessous, un article du Finantial Times qui décrit la dégradation de la situation sécuritaire en Algérie notamment depuis que les terroristes du GSPC ont annoncé leur ralliement à Al-Qaida du terroriste égyptien Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

    Algeria exposed to al-Qaeda reality
    To its residents, Hydra was a little Switzerland, a leafy, upscale neighbourhood of embassies and plush residences housing diplomats, western oil workers and Algerian military officers.

    Such points were not lost on al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the militant group that launched a suicide attack against United Nations offices in Hydra, killing dozens of people, including 17 UN staff. In a statement after the December 11 attack, AQIM boasted that it had infiltrated the “infidels’ hideout” in the “Green Zone” – a reference to the US’s heavily fortified zone in Baghdad.

    The message to Algerians and westerners was clear and chilling: the militants who adopted the al-Qaeda brand just over a year ago could strike at the heart of one of Algiers’ securest districts. The group promising to spread jihad throughout north Africa had taken their campaign to a new level.

    “When a group takes on al-Qaeda’s name there’s a certain responsibility to act, and pressure comes to act good on it,” says a US defence department official. “The attacks on the UN follow that pattern.”

    The official says there has been more direct communication between AQIM and the al-Qaeda leadership, who have been putting pressure on the group to act. The Algerian militants, meanwhile, have morphed into a semi-autonomous franchise of the broader network imitating the tactics of insurgents operating in Iraq.

    In the months leading up to the December attack, the government had been claiming a series of successes against the militants. Yet Rabah Bechla, a 63-year-old grandfather, drove a truck packed with several hundred kilograms of explosives down the narrow street to the UN offices where it detonated. At about the same time, a similar attack struck the constitutional court.

    As a result questions are being raised about the effectiveness of the security forces in tackling the threat and adapting their tactics to counter the Islamists’ new methods. Both western officials and Algerian journalists say future attacks seem inevitable.

    Britain warned last month against all but essential travel to Algiers, while the US has advised its citizens to avoid non-essential movement in the city and places frequented by westerners.

    The advisories are damaging blows to Algeria’s efforts to attract investment and the authorities’ attempts to reassure people they can contain the threat. Amid rumours that oil companies would be targeted, one international operator decided last month that its workers in the capital should temporarily work from their residences, while Renault has repatriated some employees’ dependants. Other French companies are thought to be following suit.

    “The state lost its credibility,” says Hamida Ayachi, an expert on Algerian Islamist movements. He added that AQIM had adapted to the “new situation”, but “the Algerian security forces still used their traditional means to fight.” Rather than being weakened, western officials say, the group has increased its ranks, recruiting on the back of its successes, while tapping into anti-western sentiment generated by the Iraq war.

    During the 1990s civil war, which saw more than 150,000 people die, suicide attacks were unheard of but since April there have been 11 such attacks in Algeria. The militants’ arsenal has included roadside bombs and co-ordinated vehicle-borne suicide attacks. In September, a man wearing a suicide vest killed 20 people in an apparent attempt to assassinate Abdulaziz Bouteflika, the president.

    The fear is the UN attack will further boost the group’s ability to lure new members and raise finance.

    Yet just a year ago when AQIM emerged after the movement Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French acronym GSPC, rebranded and affiliated itself to al-Qaeda, few were sure what the transition would mean in practice.

    Formed in 1998 as a splinter faction of another Islamist movement fighting state forces in Algeria’s civil conflict, GSPC stuck to a domestic agenda and was deemed to be in its last throes owing to amnesties and the success of state military operations. When the rebranding occurred, many saw it as an attempt by the weakened movement to reach out and reinvent itself by associating with the global jihad.

    Algerians, hoping their country was moving ahead on the path to stability, were generally dismissive of suggestions of any new phenomenon.

    Yet the first hint of what was to come appeared last April when three simultaneous suicide attacks, including a bold assault on the prime minister’s office, killed 33 people. Still, with the exception of an attack on a vehicle carrying French and Italian expatriate workers in September, the focus of the group seemed to be domestic targets; a coastguard base, a military barracks and police stations. Much of its activity was also confined to the mountainous Kabylie region in the east.

    Western officials were concerned about what the next target might be after the April attacks, but struggled for information from a state apparatus notorious for its opaqueness.

    After the April bombs, the UN had called for increased security outside its offices, but the Algerians did not respond. A diplomat says Algerian authorities also found evidence that the group had been conducting surveillance of the UN offices prior to the attack when they killed a cell leader, but they failed to pass the information on.

    Mr Ayachi says security sources informed him that about 30 people, mostly Algerians, had returned from Iraq in the past year to add their battle experience to AQIM. The US Department of Defense official agrees that such movement is a concern, but says so far there is only anecdotal evidence to support the fears.

    source : The Financial Times (05/02/2008).

  • #2
    Western officials were concerned about what the next target might be after the April attacks, but struggled for information from a state apparatus notorious for its opaqueness.

    After the April bombs, the UN had called for increased security outside its offices, but the Algerians did not respond. A diplomat says Algerian authorities also found evidence that the group had been conducting surveillance of the UN offices prior to the attack when they killed a cell leader, but they failed to pass the information on.
    Comme quoi l'information a bien circulé mais que nul algérien n'a été prévenu et pire ce gouvernement tant soutenu par certains a encore fait la sourde oreille. Et ILS veulent un 3ème mandat ? Mais où sont Ramdane, Mhidi et les autres ???????????????????
    Dernière modification par zwina, 17 février 2008, 02h46.
    Les libertés ne se donnent pas, elles se prennent

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