washingtonpost.com
In a video released last month on the Internet, al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, declared that he had "great news." Al-Qaeda, he reported, had joined forces with an obscure Algerian underground network and would work in tandem with the group to "crush the pillars of the crusader alliance."
The Algerian partner, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, had fought the Algerian government in a barbaric civil war for almost a decade. But Zawahiri said the new alliance had different targets in mind. "Our brothers," he said, "will be a thorn in the necks of the American and French crusaders and their allies, and a dagger in the hearts of the French traitors and apostates."
Zawahiri's statement was the latest sign of how, with al-Qaeda's help, the Algerian network has rapidly transformed itself from a local group devoted solely to seizing power at home into a global threat with cells and operations far from North Africa.
Since 2003, the group known by its French initials GSPC has emerged as an umbrella for radical Islamic factions in neighboring countries, sponsoring training camps in the Sahara and supplying streams of fighters to wars in Iraq and Chechnya, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts in Europe and North Africa.
The network also has planted deep roots in Europe. In the past year, authorities have broken up cells in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, including one group that allegedly plotted to shoot down an Israeli airliner in Geneva.
On Sept. 1, the French Anti-Terrorist Coordination Unit issued a statement classifying the group as "one of the most serious threats currently facing France," Algeria's former colonial master. Ten days later, the assessment was given fresh urgency by Zawahiri's videotape, timed for the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. In it, he noted that Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's founder, had given his personal approval to the "blessed union" between the Algerian network and al-Qaeda.
Responding to Zawahiri's declaration, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said there was a "real and permanent" risk to France, in part because of its military involvement in Lebanon and Afghanistan, as well as its policy of forbidding Muslim girls to wear head scarves in public schools.
Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, the head of France's domestic intelligence service, added: "For our Islamist adversaries, our country is frankly in the Western camp -- the 'crusaders' in their words -- and we will be spared nothing."
[...]"Al-Qaeda's objective is to have a base in the region of the Sahel," he added, referring to the remote stretch of North Africa that borders the southern edge of the Sahara and covers such impoverished nations as Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
In June 2005, about 150 of the Algerian group's fighters from different countries attacked a Mauritanian military outpost, killing 15 soldiers. Another of its cells kidnapped 32 European tourists in the Sahara in 2003 and reportedly received a $5 million ransom from the German government for their release.
"It's all mobile and on the run. They'll rendezvous in a wadi for four or five days, then disperse," the official said, using an Arabic word for a streambed that is usually dry. "We're very much concerned about it. It's more than just a few guys. If you add it up, it's a substantial number of folks."
Many veterans of the North African camps have traveled to Iraq, where they make up one of the biggest contingents of foreign fighters battling U.S. and Iraqi forces, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts.
According to a study released in March by the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, an adviser to the Saudi government, North Africans make up about 30 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq, with 22 percent from Algeria alone. U.S. military officials and independent analysts said other estimates have shown somewhat lower numbers of North Africans, but agreed that Algerians and the Salafist group are playing key roles in the conflict.
[...]Many of the Salafist group's foot soldiers in Europe have never been to Algeria, but are motivated to join the network because of Islamic anger over conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, Raufer said. "For them, it's an easy time," he said of the recruiters. "When they preach, a lot of people are furious. A lot of Muslims are outraged at what's going on." MORE
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