How serious is ISIL threat for Algeria?

19 Octobre 2014 , Rédigé par ileridefense Publié dans #Proche-Orient- Moyen-Orient- Monde Arabe

Boumerdès, Tizi Ouzou and Bouira in Kabylie are historical strongholds of religiously inspired extremist groups [AFP]

Failure of the Bouteflika administration to eradicate extremism led to the rise of Jund al-Khalifa, analysts say.

The Algerian extremist group Jund al Khalifa Arabic for Soldiers of the Caliphate - was little knownbefore it released a video message showing the execution of french hostage Herve Gourdel on September 24.

The obscure Islamic cell abducted the 55 year old Frznch mountain guide days earlier while he washiking with five Algerian friends in Kabylie, a mountainous region in northeastern Algeria. The abductionwas announced on September 22 via a YouTube video showing Gourdel flanked by two hooded men withKalashnikov rifles, who said they were responding to the call of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, spokespersonfor the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Earlier that same day, Adnani appeared in a 43-minute video calling on ISIL’s supporters around the worldto kill Westerners "in any manner" - "especially the spiteful and filthy French" because of their support formilitary action in Syria and Iraq against the group. It is still unclear whether ISIL coordinated with theKabylie-based Jund al-Khalifa group, who pledged allegiance to ISIL on September 14.

"Adnani might have released his statement only after he made sure that the French tourist fell into Jund al-Khalifa’s hands," Wassim Nasr, a journalist covering terrorism-related issues, told Al Jazeera. "This way,ISIL showed it has gained an increasingly worldwide attention."

More than two weeks after Gourdel’s death, the Algerian army continues to rake the region where theabduction occurred. The army has mobilised 3,000 troops to both search for Gourdel’s body and crackdown on Jund al-Khalifa. In a statement last month, the Algerian Ministry of Defence declared it would pursue "these criminals wherever they are until their total elimination and purification of the land".

Jund al-Khalifa, previously part of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was founded in Septemberwhen top military commanders of AQIM’s central region officially broke away from al-Qaeda's North Africabranch and sided with ISIL. In a communique, Gouri Abdelmalek, whose nom de guerre is Khaled AbuSuleimane, accused AQIM of "deviating from the true path".

"You have in the Islamic Maghreb men if you order them they will obey you,"Suleimane told Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIL's self-professed "caliph".

Abdelmalek, who was condemned for a bomb attack that killed four people in2008, also said his crew was "available" to help to "consolidate the caliphate".

"We don’t know exactly how many criminals operate under the label of Jundal-Khalifa. Yet this is certainly not a large group," an Algerian soldier recentlydeployed to Kabylie told Al Jazeera.

Geoff Porter, head of North Africa Risk Consulting, pointed to a third videoposted on September 30, which shows about 30 men of varying agesaffirming their loyalty to al-Baghdadi. Some even bared their faces. "In thevideo, only one individual spoke, so it is difficult to ascertain where they arefrom. In addition, he spoke in poor fusha, classic Arabic, which madeidentifying his accent even more difficult," Porter told Al Jazeera.

According to a local security source, fighters from the Salafist Group forPreaching and Combat (GSPC), who were active during the civil war, as wellas foreign extremist militants have joined Jund al-Khalifa. "Jihadists originallycoming from Tunisia, Mauritania as well as Western countries such asFrance and the US, were identified as members of Jund al-Khalifa," addedthe Kabylie-based Algerian soldier.

Jund al-Khalifa, analysts say, must be equipped with sophisticated materialsthat allow the terrorist cell to hide in Kabylie’s Djurdjura Mountains. Lastweek, the Algerian army announced it had destroyed one of the camps of Gourdel’s kidnappers and seizedKalashnikov rifles, ammunition and mobile phones.

The hideout, located in the Djurdjura Mountain, 150km southeast of Algiers, was empty. "The weaponscome from Libya, although they may have been in circulation in the Sahel for the last years and did notcome from Libya in the immediate past," Porter said.

Observers argue, however, that this newly-formed group does not pose a bigger security threat forAlgeria’s security than al-Qaeda’s northern African branch. "AQIM has always been concerned about itslongevity, whereas Jund al-Khalifa seems more concerned about expediency. AQIM is more establishedand Jund al-Khalifa may be a short-lived phenomenon," Porter said.

The splinter group, experts say, does not have the capacity to pull off a big terrorist action such as theattack of AQIM-affiliated supporters on the in Amenas gas plant that killed about 40 employees in 2013,among them foreign workers. But this does not mean that Jund al-Khalifa is irrelevant. Indeed, the intentionof ISIL is not to establish an Islamic state in Algeria, but to use Jund al-Khalifa as a scare tactic to spreadfear across the Maghreb and by extension into Western countries.

"ISIL wants to have a worldwide psychological impact and it is succeeding," Malika Rahal, a senior fellow atthe French National Centre for Scientific Research, told Al Jazeera. "The decapitation of Gourdel is ahorrible reminder of the black decade [civil war], when the Algerian Salafist fighters used these acts ofbarbarism to scare people. While the terrorists used to hang the heads of their victims from the bridges inthe 1990s, in order to intimidate the local population, now they broadcast the public executions on YouTubeto take direct aim at a worldwide audience."

Jund al-Khalifa is not the only group operating in the mountains of Kabylie; several similar groups roam thedensely-forested area. The regions of Boumerdès, Tizi Ouzou and Bouira in Kabylie are historicalstrongholds of religiously inspired extremist groups, like AQIM, as well as smugglers. Attacks on securityforces and civilians, fake roadblocks and kidnappings are common across Kabylie.

Since December 2005, almost 80 Algerians have been kidnapped in Kabylie with the kidnappersdemanding ransoms. "The residents avoid driving in certain roads, especially at night," head of the TiziOuzou's local parliament, Hocine Haroun, told Al Jazeera.

Locals, largely hostile to Algeria’s ailing President AbdelazizBouteflika, blame his administration for abandoning theregion to both mercenaries and extremist groups. "Thereare two possibilities," according to Rahal: "Either thenational army does not have the capacity to control thewhole area, given the topographic features. Or, thegovernment is not truly willing to resolve the security issuesin Kabylie in order to justify the national authoritarian rule."

The Bouteflika administration finds it difficult to eradicatereligiously inspired forms of extremism because of a"communication breakdown inside Algeria’s information-sharing system", a former intelligence official told Al Jazeera.

During the black decade, the government, the national army and the state intelligence service (DRS)worked closely together to fight the militant groups, but a conflict between these three institutions has beenrunning since Bouteflika's 1999 election. This conflict, the intelligence official said, puts Algerian nationalsecurity at risk. In September 2013, Bouteflika shifted some responsibilities from the DRS to the regulararmy in order to curb the influence of the powerful chief of intelligence security, General Mohamed "Toufik"Mediene.

"As a result, President Bouteflika, who has made security his most important theme, allows terrorist cellssuch as Jund al-Khalifa to emerge," the retired intelligence official said.

Source : Al-Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/10/how-serious-isil-threat-algeria-2014101661651220381.html

Relayé par : Mayssane Bellal

While the terrorists used to hang the heads of their victims from the bridges in the 1990s, in order to intimidate the local population, now they broadcast the public executions on YouTube to take direct aim at a worldwide audience

Malika Rahal, fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research

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