GSPC wants to establish Al Qa in the Maghreb
By Olivier Guitta
Recently,four Algerians presumably close to the GSPC were placed in temporary detention in Spain. The Spanish judge, a Madrid native, Fernando Andreu suspects them of financial and logistical support to GSPC and of having tried to acquire in Grenade, dynamite Goma-2 in exchange for hashish ; interestingly this is the same dynamite that was used in the Madrid attacks of March 11, 2004.
On November 24, 17 Islamists were arrested in Morocco, and according to the depositions made by one of them, they were affiliated with the Algerian group GSPC. GSPC has become probably the spearhead of the jihad in the Maghreb and in the countries of the Sahel. Their objective is to make the Maghreb a launching pad towards Europe under the auspices of the Algerian Islamist Khalid Abou Bassir, considered as one of the Al Qaida leaders in Europe. Among the arrested Islamists is a Belgian Moroccan Mohamed Reha who stated: "Not only were we preparing jihad operations in Morocco but we were working to expand our Jihadist movement to all the countries of the Maghreb with the help of our Algerian brothers from the GSPC”. Some of the arrested Islamists have told the police that they lived in Syria and from there have helped infiltrate Moroccan and Tunisian fighters into Iraq to join the forces of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi.
Khalid Abou Bassir would have also informed Reha of its project to create a " jihadist movement for the Arab Maghreb under the Al Qaîda leadership with a single organization for Morocco and Algeria". After the GSPC had made allegiance to Al-Qaîda, we decided, Reha declared to call our movement: " Al-Qaîda in the Arab countries of the Maghreb". According to Reha’s statements a group of Moroccans and Algerians, close to Al Qaîda, were "to conduct attacks against American and Jewish interests in Morocco, in particular in Tangier (northern) and Essaouira (south-western)". "Attacks were programmed against hotels particularly in Essaouira and Agadir where many Jewish tourists stay, along with the casino of Tangier and the Parliament in Rabat”, and finally also against ships "transporting Americans".