GSPC hits hard in Algeria

By Olivier Guitta

GSPC which is now named Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb perpetrated today six near simultaneous attacks in Kabylia in a twenty-mile radius. According to government figures, six people died and 13 were injured. The targets were police stations. It is one of the most spectacular wave of attacks orchestrated by the GSPC. It has also the hallmarks of Al Qaeda.

Furthermore, an official statement of Al-Qaïda has just claimed responsibility for the “Raid of Abou Al Baraa” and evokes 140 victims, including dead and wounded. The official statement which circulates on islamist sites close to Al-Qaïda congratulates the "brave mujahideen" for having hit a hard blow to the Algerian “impious” and its agents. It specifies that six booby-trapped cars, remote-controlled entirely destroyed police stations while saving the Muslim population. Al Qaeda in the Maghreb confirmed it is committed continuing the jihad until “the eradication of the traitors and the allies of the Crusaders and the Jews."

For the past few days the Algerian army has used thousands of soldiers heavily armed to comb that region in search of GSPC terrorists. This is response to four attacks over the weekend. Just in January, over 30 people died in terror related attacks in Algeria.

This just confirms what I have been saying for months that the national reconciliation plan of the Algerian government was doomed to failure. Here's the beginning of an article I wrote for the Weekly Standard back in July:

On July 10, a group of terrorists entered a campground in Gouraya, a Mediterranean resort 75 miles from Algiers, and randomly massacred 5 people. The victims were among the 22 killed by terrorists in Algeria in the first half of July--putting that month on track to be a little less bloody than those preceding it. In April, the death toll was 60; in May, 54; in June, 65--this in a country with a population roughly the size of California's, and a government insistent that Islamist terrorism has been basically defeated.

Despite the official happy talk, kidnappings by Islamists to raise money for their cause are a routine occurrence in Algeria. And not a day goes by without terrorists' attacking military personnel, government employees, or ordinary civilians, whom they regard as allies of the government. Just in recent weeks, the GSPC (Algerian Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat), the al Qaeda affiliate that is now the main Algerian terrorist group, orchestrated an assault that killed 17 customs officers when their vehicles were riddled with bullets; another that killed 7 police officers when their truck was hit by an RPG; and the execution of 5 farmers who were shot, then finished off with daggers, their bodies burned. The GSPC also plants bombs in public places to create panic. Boumerdès, for example, about 25 miles from the capital, was hit twice by terror attacks near the main downtown bus station. Authorities are wondering whether Algiers will be next.

TrackBack