Algeria hit by surge in guerrilla violence

[Al-khiyal]

Local sources in the District of Meftah (Wilaya of Blida) said that a number of youths have been missing since last week. The sources confirmed that it is probable that the youths, some of whom are repentant, have joined the fiefdoms of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

Nine youths are reported to be missing in the district. Security sources have neither denied nor confirmed officially the fact that the youths have been missing and that some of them have been operating in the area, which has been without sn occurrence of terrorist attacks since 2003. The missing people are supposed to have joined the maquis last week. One of them has been charged with belonging to a terrorist group. The citizens in Meftah deem that this event is something likely to happen at any time as long as Abdelmalek Droukdal, the chief of the GSPC is native to the same region.

9 people, some them repentant, join the maquis

[Al-khiyal]

Aboudjerra Soltani: Money Mafia is behind recent terrorist acts

[Al-khiyal]

ANP forces continue sweep in Bouira

[Al-khiyal]

Joint security forces managed last weekend to arrest 6 terrorists, among them a student, belonging to a terrorist supporting group in the suburbs of Bejaia.

The terrorist group was living normally in Al Maghra Village, 10 Km from Bejaia, sources told El Khabar.

Other terrorists are supposed to have fled from the security forces and joined the fiefdom in the mountain. That’s why the joint security forces have intensified their combing in the area, according to local sources. Reliable security sources confirmed that the main fiefdom of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in Kessila Mountains is still under siege and hundreds of military and resistance elements have closed all exits to isolate the terrorist supporting group.

On other hand, a terrorist group got hold of and destroyed a garbage truck of Chekfa commune services of the Wilaya of Jijel. Reliable sources said the terrorists stole the truck at 9.30 am near the garbage pile of the commune when on duty. The terrorists compelled the driver to leave the truck, took it to El Adjarda, tens of meters far from the garbage pile, and threw it from an altitude of 100 meters. The truck was so entirely destroyed and the terrorists fled towards the forests of the area.

6 terrorists arrested in Bejaia and the main fiefdom besieged

[Al-khiyal]

Jijel criminal court considers 29 terrorism-related cases

[Al-khiyal]

Deutsche Presse Agentur reported that accounts in Algerian newspapers yesterday detailed a battle between Islamists and the army. At least seven soldiers were killed, and 13 were wounded. The attacks took place at Bourira, 75 miles east of the capital, on Wednesday.

The newspaper El Watan, also reported that members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) beheaded a shepherd near the town of T'Kout in the east. The victim's head was placed on a pole, and his sheep were stolen. GSPC is now officially linked with Al Qaeda, as announced by Ayman al-Zawahiri on a jihadist website on September 11.

The aim of GSPC is to establish an Islamic state in Algeria, though it is active in terror plots in Europe. It has active cells in France, Italy, Belgium and Spain and has had operatives (Yamine Bouhrama and Khaled Serai) active in Norway. The September 11 message from Al Qaeda's second-in-command warned that the group would be making an attack soon upon France.

GSPC came into being after the decision by the Algerian army to prevent a democratically-elected Islamist government from taking power in 1992. Since that time, various groups, including GSPC, have mounted bloody campaigns, in which 150,000 to 200,000 people have died in Algeria. The majority of these were civilians.

In 2003, a cell of GSPC, led by former Algerian army paratrooper Amari Saifi kidnapped European tourists in the Algerian Sahara. The kidnap victims were mostly German, with Austrian, Swedish, Swiss and Dutch citizens. These were ransomed for $6 million. Saifi was captured in Chad in 2004, and was later sentenced to life imprisonment by the Algerian authorities.

A referendum was ordered by the government, to see if the public were willing to "forgive and forget" the previous atrocities and allow an amnesty for Islamists. The referendum was held on September 29 last year. Two days later, within hours of the vote showing that the public wanted to give Islamists an amnesty, a message appeared on a jihadist website on October 1. This message came from GSPC's leader Abou Mossab Abdelouadoud (Abdelmalek Droukdel). It read: "The Jihad will go on ... we have promised God to continue the Jihad and the combat."

In February, the terms for an amnesty were laid out by the Algerian government, which included the release of 2,200 Islamists residing in Algeria's jails. In June, interior minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni announced that 200 Islamists had already surrendered themselves to the government, but he said that a further 800 could gain from the deal.

The deadline for the amnesty of Islamists to give themselves up was set at August 31. In the weeks leading up to the deadline, attacks by the GSPC and other groups increased.

On October 30, Islamists attacked two police stations in separate towns east of Algiers, the capital. GSPC were widely blamed for the simultaneous truck bombings which killed three people and wounded 24. The attacks were the first to be made upon police stations in five years.

It seems that amnesties from a democratically-elected government mean nothing for those who are pledged to create an Islamist state.

Algeria: Islamists still active

[Al-khiyal]

Rearmament of villagers in Tipaza: Fleeing inhabitants decide to return home