Algeria hit by surge in guerrilla violence

[Al-khiyal]

The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) lost yesterday one of its pillars. The terrorist was killed in the Forest Sidi Bounab (west of Tizi Ouzou) by an army unit specialised in the fight against terrorism. The man in question is GSPC’s judge Tahar Mouassi known as “Abu Yaakub”.

Army sources from the area where Abu Yaakub died said that the paratrooper brigade set up an ambush to the terrorist early in the morning as they were tipped off that he usually went to a specific place in Sidi Bounab forest. The hiding place was found to be the archives of the GSPC. The sources, who qualified the archives as very important as they include documents about the armed organisation men’s conflicts, added that the army forces picked up the terrorist’s weapon. A repentant gave the army forces the information about the road Abu Yaakub used to take to the hiding place. The terrorist, who always insisted on going alone to the archives’ place, had been under surveillance for many days before the ambush.

Abu Yaakub joined terrorist groups in 1994. He was a Mufti officer in the second region. When Nabil Sahrawi known as (Mustafa Abu Brahim) became leader of the organisation as a replacement for Hassan Hattab (Abu Hamza) in 2003, he appointed him as a judge of the Group. According to several repentant witnesses, the appointing of Mouassi at the top of the council was imposed and caused a regional conflict about the position, which is currently held by the organisation’s chief Abdelmalek Droukdal called Abu Musaab. According to the same source, the elements of the fifth region (East) were outraged because elements coming from Eastern wilayas have been marginalised and alienated from important positions in the Notables Council.

GSPC’s judge killed in Sidi Ali Bounab

[Al-khiyal]

Hassan Hattab accused of taking 'GSPC’s money'

[Al-khiyal]

DUBAI - A radical Algerian group known as the GSPC pledged its allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and vowed to pursue holy war in Algeria, according to a statement posted on the Internet Thursday.

"We pledge allegiance to sheikh Osama bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes," said the statement signed by Abu Mossaab Abdelwadud, the emir of the group.

Bin Laden's right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed in a video message this week that the group had joined Al-Qaeda and warned it would be a "thorn in the throat" of the West.

"Osama bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC (the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) has joined Al-Qaeda," Zawahiri said, according to extracts of the video issued this week to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

"We pray to God that they will be a thorn in the side of the American and French crusaders and their allies," he said.

The GSPC, created in 1998 by dissidents from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), rejects Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's policy of reconciliation. It is regarded as the only radical movement left in the country capable of causing serious trouble.

Algeria's GSPC vows to pursue 'holy war'

[Al-khiyal]

Security sources expect to see a certain number of terrorists surrender in the wilaya of Bejaia after having been besieged for weeks by national army forces. The terrorists lack food supplies and could not move to satisfy their needs.

Joint security services proceeded Friday afternoon to a large scale combing in the area of « tala Hamza » near the wilaya of Bejaia, in which hundreds of national army elements and self-defence elements participated. They succeeded in destroying the bunkers in the Ait Ayad forest and its tortuous paths.

According to local sources, security services have found a place for archives and got their hands on important documents concerning the terrorist group’s activities and internal and external contacts. Security services have also found considerable quantities of hardware which served as a means of access to the communication networks of security and contacts abroad. Other sources indicated that the combing operation was based on information tipped by a terrorist arrested at Bejaia.

Expected surrender of many terrorists in Bejaia

[Al-khiyal]

A national army unit confronted last Saturday overnight a terrorist group of four elements in Ain Alam in the Wilaya of Etaref. The army forces managed to exchange fire and arrest one of the terrorists. The three others were able to flee.

The terrorist group went to that place to buy some food and medicine supplies. Security services were tipped off about that and encircled them. The arrested man threw down his weapon and shouted calling for national reconciliation... He is from Ain Barbar (Wilaya of Annaba), reliable sources confirmed.

Terrorist arrested in Etaref

[Al-khiyal]

Algerian police dismissed an announcement by the main rebel group that it had joined al-Qaeda, saying that although its fighters remained a worry they lacked the capacity to conduct major attacks.

"Their threats don't scare us," El Watan newspaper quoted Surete Nationale director general Ali Tounsi as saying in reaction to the announcement last week by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

"If they had the means to do something [like al-Qaeda], they would have already done it. We have taken all the measures and have all the resources to guarantee security. The government has never stinted on our resources."

GSPC, which has rejected a government amnesty aimed at ending years of violence, also issued a statement in September 2003 in which it announced its allegiance to al-Qaeda.

Experts estimate about 500 fighters, most of them GSPC members, are still at large waging a campaign to overturn the government and establish purist Islamist rule.

About 300 gave themselves up during a six-month amnesty for Islamist guerrillas that expired at the end of August under a government-backed national reconciliation programme.

Tounsi said those who remained in the bush were a worry and they ought to disarm.

"It's not those who've given themselves in that are worrying, but those who are still armed," he said.

Islamists began an armed revolt in 1992 after the then military backed authorities, fearing an Islamic revolution, scrapped a parliamentary election.

Up to 200 000 people are estimated to have been killed in the fighting. The violence has sharply subsided in recent years.

Algeria police unimpressed by rebels' al-Qaeda link

[Al-khiyal]

Two murders in Ain Defla and two soldiers injured in Annaba