AQIM 's recent activity and success is quite worrisome
By Olivier Guitta
Since the spectacular double suicide attack of Dec 11 in Algiers, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has been quite successful: in Mauritania they killed four French tourists and in another attack 3 soldiers; they also had for the first time ever the race Paris-Dakar cancelled.
European authorities are very much on the lookout for possible AQIM attacks on the continent.
Indeed for AQIM, pulling off an attack in Europe would be a huge coup. The Croissant has been extensively covering AQIM and the Maghreb in general.
I recently wrote a piece for the Middle East Times on AQIM. If you want to read the full article, please click here. Here is an excerpt:
The Maghreb, or "the West" in Arabic, is slowly turning into a crucial region in the war on radical Islam. Al-Qaida's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has devoted many of his recent messages to the Maghreb calling for the overthrow of regimes in place and attacking French and Spanish interests there.
The main terror vehicle to attain this goal is al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM. In fact, this organization was "founded" in January 2007 when the former Algerian insurgent group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat changed its name and decided to officialize its merger with al-Qaida.
What is al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb really up to?
One of its primary goals is to federate the main terror organizations in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya in order to attain full regional reach. For the time being, AQIM is just the improved Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.
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