Algiers Terror "Ghazwa": It is a global war with Terror, in different battlefields

By Walid Phares

Today's suicide attacks in Algiers leaves us with the following thinking points:

1. The Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (with its new name) joined al-Qaeda few months ago. It is now waging "Jihad" against the Algerian state, civil society and democracy movements in that mostly Arab Muslim country. The press release by al Qaeda of Maghreb -aired on al Jazeera TV- is clear: It is about a global Jihadi campaign with Algeria and other countries as "battlefields."

2. This is an additional evidence that the War on Terror is global and not linked directly and exclusively to U.S. Foreign Policy. The Jihadists in Algeria are targeting Algerians from all backgrounds while there are no US troops in that country. It is a struggle that began before 9/11 and is resuming today.

3. The ideology of the Algerian Salafists, as I described in my book the War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy, aim at brining down 52 Muslim Government, including 21 Arab regimes, around the world, in addition to fighting the "infidels" wherever they can and decide to meet them.

4. In the current debate on the War on Terror, and while voices in the US Congress -as well as in the European Parliament- have called for banning the term "Global War on Terror," the attacks in Algeria today demonstrate (with blood and statements) that many in the West haven't yet understood the Global aim of the Jihadists. In my book, I argue that the War of Ideas has to be won at home first, so that the Global Conflict with the Jihadist can be won as well.

5. The barbaric attacks in Algiers, called "Ghazwa" (Jihadi raid) by al Qaeda, shows that more than ever, Muslim moderates and anti-Jihadists need to rise against the Jihadi Terrorists before their societies are overwhelmed by the Salafists and the Khomeinists

6. It is to note that the attack in Algiers is linked to last week's attacks in Morocco and the confrontations in the rest of North Africa and Somalia. Hence I would recommend that counter terrorism analysts in the West and in the Middle East provide a sound regional expertise to an international media which can derail itself further in its own assessment of the attacks, if it relies too much on evaluations by the pro-Wahabi intellectual elite.

This is a short brief. It will be followed later with a related analysis.

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