An Islamist insurgency is taking place in the Maghreb region of North Africa, followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002. The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Algerian and other Maghreb governments fighting the militants have worked with the United States and the United Kingdom since 2007, when Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara began.
While the 2011 Arab Spring affected support for the insurgency, it also presented military opportunities for the jihadists. In 2012, AQIM and Islamist allies captured the northern half of Mali. They held the territory for almost a year, until being forced out of the urban areas during a French-led foreign intervention, which was succeeded by the Sahel-wide Operation Barkhane. In Libya, the Islamic State was able to control some limited territory during the Second Libyan Civil War, amid allegations of local collaboration with its AQIM rival.
Background
With the decline of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA), the GSPC was left as the most active rebel group, with about 300 fighters in 2003. It continued an assassination campaign of police and army personnel in its area, and also managed to expand into the Sahara, where its southern division, led by Amari Saifi (nicknamed "Abderrezak el-Para", the "paratrooper"), kidnapped a number of German tourists in 2003, before being forced to flee to sparsely populated areas of Mali, and later Niger and Chad, where he was captured.
Some believe that el-Para actually works for the Algerian government. By late 2003, the group's founder had been supplanted by the even more radical Nabil Sahraoui, who announced his open support for al-Qaeda, thus strengthening government ties between the U.S. and Algeria. He was reportedly killed shortly afterwards, and was succeeded by Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud in 2004.
The GSPC has declared its intention to attack Algerian, French, and American targets. It has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Department of State, and similarly classed as a terrorist organization by the European Union.
Overview
Insurgency in Algeria
The conflict with the GSPC continued to result in a significant number of casualties in Algeria, with over 1,100 killed in clashes with Islamist rebels in 2002. In 2003, a total 1,162 were killed in clashes in Algeria, followed by 429 killed in 2004, 488 killed in 2005, and 323 killed in 2006. In early 2006, the head of the Algerian national police claimed that terrorism had nearly been eliminated in the country, but significant attacks continued, and 2007 would eventually mark a height of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks in Algeria.
Broadening of conflict
In order to improve recruiting and funding, the GSPC aligned itself with al-Qaeda, and on 11 September 2006, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced a union between the groups. The GSPC rebranded itself as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in January 2007, signaling the broadened aspirations of the group.
The group now aimed to overthrow all North African governments deemed apostate, including those of Algeria, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. Operations were shifted into two broader "sectors", Northern Algeria and Tunisia allocated a "central emirate", and northern Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Libya a "Sahara emirate" led by Djamel Okacha. The strategic leadership of AQIM continued to be headquartered in the mountainous region of Kabylie east of the Algerian capital Algiers, headed by a 14-member Shura council leadership.
As the Algerian counterterrorism campaign became largely successful in pushing AQIM out of the country, the group established new bases in Sahel countries such as Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Mali. Attacks against government and military installations were frequently underreported by Western media. In 2007, the United States and United Kingdom launched the Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara in support of governments in the region.
Frequent kidnappings of foreigners in 2008 led the Dakar Rally to be cancelled and permanently moved to South America.
Mauritania
In the earliest major attack as direct spillover of the Algerian conflict, the Mauritanian army base at Lemgheity was attacked by the GSPC in June 2005, killing 17 soldiers (and nine jihadists), and wounding another 17. The attack in part led to a coup d'état in October 2005 by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who made a campaign against jihadists a major part of his rule. Attacks continued in Mauritania until it was largely successful in thwarting attacks since 2011 following a major military boost and political openings for Islamists. AQIM has however continued to remain active in the eastern border-regions with Mali, with active support systems for logistics and information. A lack of military resources, often due to turmoil and having little population in a very large country, caused Mauritania to rely on support from France, Morocco, and Algeria in order to defeat the AQIM.
Tunisia
In December 2006 and again in January 2007, Tunisian security forces engaged in clashes with a group linked to the GSPC that had established training camps in mountainous areas near the capital Tunis, killing more than a dozen people. According to French daily Le Parisien at least 60 people were killed in the clashes. The clashes were the most serious terrorist activity in Tunisia since the Ghriba synagogue bombing in 2002.
Starting in 2012, AQIM along with Ansar al-Sharia and the Uqba ibn Nafi Brigade active in the mountainous Jebel ech Chambi region outside Kasserine near the Algeria–Tunisia border have been targeted by the Tunisian Army in the Chaambi Operations. In 2014, Uqba ibn Nafi Brigade militants attacked two Tunisian military checkpoints, killing fourteen Tunisian soldiers and injuring twenty-five in what was the deadliest military skirmish in Tunisia since its independence in 1956. Since 2015, Tunisia has simultaneously been targeted by an IS insurgency campaign. In March 2016 over 50 militants were killed when IS fighters attempted to seize Ben Guerdane near the Libya–Tunisia border.
Libyan Civil War
Since the Libyan Civil War in 2011, south-western Libya has offered sanctuaries to AQIM which has dispatched cells to be established in the region. On 11 September 2012, members of Ansar al-Sharia and AQIM were responsible for coordinated attacks against two United States government facilities in Benghazi, and Ansar al-Sharia was later involved in clashes in Benghazi in 2013. Drawing defectors from AQIM, the rival Islamic State (IS) organization was later able to control some limited territory in the north in the renewed civil war from 2014. After initial official support from AQIM, allegations have continued of local collaboration between the otherwise rivalling groups. After being pushed out of Derna, the remaining IS stronghold of Sirte was captured in late 2016. Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists led by Ansar al-Sharia have at the same time continued to exert control in other places.
Timeline of events
2002
- Algerian Civil War with the GIA is considered to have ended in February 2002, GSPC continues insurgency.
- April 11 – Ghriba synagogue bombing killed 22 (14 German tourists, 5 Tunisians, and 2 French nationals and the suicide bomber).
- May 5 – 15 government soldiers are killed in an ambush near Tizi Ouzou, in the Kabylie region of northern Algeria. About 50 members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) were blamed for the assault.
- June 23 – Militants killed 6 civilians in an attack on youths playing football near a bus station in Zéralda in suburban Algiers.
- July 17 – Militants killed 7 civilians in Ouled Allal, Bouïra Province. Bringing the death toll of the previous three days to 22.
- September 13 – Militants killed 11 civilians on a road in Aïn Defla Province, northern Algeria. The previous month, according to a toll compiled from press reports and official accounts, an estimated 140 people were killed in extremist violence, bringing the number of people who had been killed since the beginning of the year to 1,070.
- September 19 – 15 people are reported to have been arrested in Kabylie under suspicion of providing money and logistical help to the GSPC.
- October 2 – Militants killed 13 civilians in a remote village in Aïn Defla Province, western Algeria.
2003
- January 6 – Militants ambushed a military convoy in north-east Algeria killing 43 soldiers and wounding 19 others. Also militants attacked families near the capital, Algiers, killing 13 people.
- Between February 22 and March 24 – The Free Salafist Group (GSL), a splinter group of the GSPC led by Amari Saïfi (Abderrazak "El Para"), allegedly captures 32 European tourists in southern Algeria.
- On May 13, 17 hostages are released and 2 militants are killed in a gun battle in the Algerian desert. The remaining fighters, with 15 hostages, flee to northern Mali. After receiving a purported €5 million ransom paid by the German government, the GSL/GSPC releases the 14 remaining hostages on August 19. The fifteenth hostage, a German, died of heat exhaustion.
- May 16 – 2003 Casablanca bombings killed 45 including 12 suicide-bombers.
- September – Nabil Sahraoui was reported to have replaced Hassan Hattab as leader of the GSPC but other media reports have denied that any change has taken place.
- November 27 – In Messad, Djelfa Province, Algeria, a well-known poet and member of the extended Royal Saudi family was killed and 4 others were injured in an apparent terrorist attack, according to press reports.
2004
- May 2 – It was reported that in the previous two days 7 members of the security forces, 6 civilians and 2 militants were killed in several locations: near Algiers and in the provinces of Medea, Bouira and Relizane.
- May 18 – 2 bombs exploded, killing 2 soldiers and wounding 13 people, including 4 soldiers, in Setif in eastern Algeria.
- June 2 – Fighters ambushed an Algerian military convoy in Béjaïa in eastern Algeria, killing 10 soldiers and wounding 45 others.
- June 28 – The Algerian army killed three Islamic extremists in a raid near the capital, Algiers.
- September 20 – Militants killed 4 people at a roadblock they set up near Kalous in Bouira Province.
- September 29 – Militants attacked a civil defense post near the city of Ain Defla, killing 6 members of the civil defense force.
- October 22 – Militants attacked a vehicle near Médéa carrying fans to a football match in the capital Algiers, killing 16 people.
2005
- April 9 – Militants killed 14 people at a mock roadblock near Algier. In addition another 36 people, including 15 security force members have been killed since the start of March.
- April 25 – Mauritania dismantled its first domestic jihadist cell in the suburbs of Nouakchott.
- May 15 – Fighters ambushed an army convoy in the region of Khenchela killing 12 soldiers.
- June 4 – Militants attacked a Mauritanian army barracks, killing 17 soldiers, injuring 17, and capturing 35, with around 5–9 militants killed.
- June 13 – An explosive device kills 3 soldiers and 3 civilians west of Tipaza.
- June 18 – An explosive device killed a policeman during a police raid in El-Djer.
- June 23 – An explosive device kills 11 policeman on the road linking Azzefoune and Aghrib in the province of Tizi Ouzou.
- July 18 – Islamist militants killed 5 policemen in an ambush in Ain Defla in western Algeria.
- September 25 – Militants killed 5 members of the security forces. Three days before, 7 soldiers and 3 civilians were killed in two other attacks. Since the beginning of the month, another 16 soldiers, 12 civilians and 1 policeman were killed. The attacks took place in Boumerdes Province and close to Saida.