Breaking News: Algerian Diplomatic Envoys Reportedly Executed by Al-Qaida

By Evan Kohlmann

In a new communique posted within the past hour, the Military Wing of Al-Qaida's Jihad Committee in Mesopotamia--led by wanted terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--has announced the execution of two Algerian diplomats held hostage in Iraq following a decision two days ago by Al-Qaida's Shura Council to impose the death penalty.  In a daring July 21 insurgent operation, Ali Belarousi and his colleague Azzedine Belkadi were dragged from their vehicle in a highly secured zone of Baghdad and seized as captives.  The Algerian Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC) has applauded the operation and, yesterday, issued a special request to Al-Qaida to videotape "confessions" by the diplomats--particularly Azzedine Belkadi, who the GSPC accused of being behind massacres of Algerian civilians blamed on militant Algerian Islamists. 

Just in case there was any question about the prominent role of the GIA/GSPC in killing innocent Muslims in North Africa, I'm posting an original copy of a September 1995 communique from former GIA chief Antar Zouabri.  Zouabri proceeded to label the Algerian people writ-large as "infidels, apostates, and hypocrites" and claimed responsibility for--in the words of former Finsbury Park Mosque cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri--"killing, slaughtering, massacring, burning, and even kidnapping and raping women of their opponents" and taking others as slaves.  Even the notorious Abu Hamza later criticized the GIA for its policy of killing innocent Algerian Muslims as a "stab in the back... [of] the Muslim Ummah in general and the mujahideen in Algeria and worldwide in particular."

See also: Al-Qaida in Iraq Seizes Algerian Diplomats, GSPC Applauds Operation

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