Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's dilemma
By Olivier Guitta
I just wrote a piece for the Middle East Times on AQIM's internal situation.
For more on AQIM, please view The Croissant.
You can read the whole piece here.
Here is an excerpt:
The Algerian terror group GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) is the main component of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
In the past few weeks AQIM has scored many successes: pulling off a double suicide attack on Dec. 11 in Algiers that killed officially 31 (but maybe up to 76), killing in two separate attacks four French tourists and three soldiers in Mauritania.
But AQIM's big victory may turn out to be the cancellation for the first time of the famous and popular Paris-Dakar rally. Indeed, French authorities warned the organizers of the race that the risks of terror attacks by AQIM were too high to let the event run.
Nonetheless, AQIM is facing very strong internal strife.
For the GSPC, the decision to join Al-Qaida meant the beginning of a rebellion in its ranks. In fact, according to a top French official cited recently by Le Monde and testimonies from several GSPC dissidents, for the past few months, Abdelwadoud Droudkel, aka Abu Mussab, GSPC's leader, has been allegedly trying to curb the dissension among his organization.
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