AQIM: the Devolution of the North African Al Qaeda Node

AQIM: The Devolution of al Qaeda’s North African Node

[Teaser:]AQIM remains a security threat in North Africa, but recent events show a steady decline in its operational capacity and overall strength.

Summary

In April, militants with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) kidnapped a 78-year-old French citizen in Mali. Three months later, after supporting a Mauritanian military offensive against AQIM and later learning the hostage had been killed, the French government declared war on the group. AQIM hasreached violently into the Sahara-Sahel region, butmore recent developmentspoint tothe group’s steady devolution since its founding in 2006. Four years hence, we thought it time to assess the current state of al Qaeda’s North African node, which has been forced to strike softer targets closer to its Algerian basewhileits sub-commanders to the south grow competitive and autonomous.

Analysis

On July 27, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said that France was <link nid="168069">at war with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)</link>, the al Qaeda node in North Africa. This followed a live televised broadcast the day before by French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirming that a 78-year-old French hostage captured by AQIM operatives in April in Mali had been killed by his captors. Urging French citizens to avoid travel to the Sahara-Sahel region, Sarkozy condemned the act and vowed a determined effort against the group.

Fillon’s announcement came three days after the end of a four-day French-backed offensive by Mauritanian troops against AQIM militants suspected of holding the French hostage deep into the Malian portion of the SaharaDesert. Despite the loss of the hostage, the offensive represented a largely unprecedented escalation of military operations by European and African security forces against militant Islamists in the North Africa and the Sahara-Sahel region, where AQIM remains a threat to security. Indeed, the events of July follow similar incidents and messagesearlier in the yearfrom French and U.S. officials warning citizens to exercise extreme caution when traveling near the Burkina Faso, Mauritanian and the Mali-Niger borders.

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These events also represent a steady devolution of AQIM’s operational capacity and overall strength. According to the U.S. National Counter-Terrorism Center’s Worldwide Incidence Tracking System and open-source material, the frequency and lethality of AQIM attacks in Algeria have fallen to unprecedented lows since the group’s founding in 2006. Indeed, because of increased security efforts against the group by Algerian and regional authorities, AQIM has been forced to strike softer, more vulnerable targets near its base east of Algiers in Bordj Bou Arreridj province and the so-called “triangle of death,” a mountainous area between Bouira, Boumerdes and Tizi Ouzou Kabyile.

Moreover, while AQIM has widened its range far from its Algerian stronghold to countries of the Sahara-Sahel region, its far-reaching attacks are more indicative of the growing autonomy and competitiveness of AQIM sub-commanders in its southern zone of operations and an overall lack of centralized control. These attacks also show that the North African al Qaeda node is an Africa-wide phenomenon and that its parent organizations have long had a presence in the lawless Sahara-Sahel.

Background

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Tanzim al-Qa’ida fi bilad al-Maghreb al-Islami) represents only the latest manifestation of Islamist opposition and violence in Algeria.The group traces its roots back to the late 1990s and the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, also known as the <link nid="102761">Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC)</link>. Primarily a Salafi-jihadi Islamist group, GSPC emerged in 1998 after it split from the Armed Islamic Group, or Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), because of the latter’s brutal attacks against Algerian civilians during the country’s civil war. Headed by former Algerian paratrooper and GIA regional commander Hassan Hattab, the GSPC offered disaffected GIA militants a fresh start in their struggle against the Algerian government.

Hattab’s leadership was short-lived, however. An ardent religious nationalist, Hattab began to dispute GSPC’s slide toward the transnational jihadist agenda espoused by al Qaeda after 2001. Feeling the pressure, Hattab eventually “resigned” (though he was actually forced out) as emir in 2001 and was replaced by former GIA commander Nabil Sahraoui (aka Sheikh Abou Ibrahim Mustapha). In 2003, Sahraoui issued a statement to online jihadist forums expressing his group’s intention to join al Qaeda and “Osama bin Laden’s jihad against the heretic America.” He was killed the following year by Algerian security forces and replaced by the current head of AQIM, Abdelmalek Droukdel (akaAbu Musab Abd al-Wadud), a seasoned Islamist militant and explosives expert.

The formation of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was <link nid="34017">officially announced on Sept. 11, 2006, by al Qaeda’s number two in command, Ayman al-Zawahri</link>, in an online video posted to jihadist websites via al Qaeda’s As-Sahab media wing. This “blessed union,” as Zawahri put it, vowed to “be a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders and their allies.” The announcement was followed by a statement made three days later by then-GSPC head Droukdel pledging allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and to “the faith, the doctrine, the method and the modes of action of [al Qaeda’s] members, as well as their leaders and religious guides.” While 2006 marked the formal merger between the two groups, al Qaeda and its nodes had been corresponding and negotiating with AQIM’s parent organization for at least a few years before.

In a New York Times interview published in July 2008, Droukdel cited religious motivations as the primary reasons for GSPC’s merger with al Qaeda. However, there is speculation among Western and North African intelligence analysts that the formation was less ideological and more opportunistic. Indeed, GSPC was reeling from a long-running offensive spearheaded by the Algerian government that had almost annihilated the group and forced it to retreat to its traditional stronghold in the mountainous Kabylie region in eastern Algeria. To make matters worse, the government’s 1999 amnesty agreement with the militants convinced a number of GIA and GSPC members to lay down their arms (it is noteworthy that AQIM has since used the amnesty to its advantage, recruiting a number of former militants into its ranks). Desperate to survive, so the theory goes, the group turned to al Qaeda, facilitated by Mokhtar Belmokhtar (akaKhaled Abou al-Abbas, or Lâaouar the “one-eyed”) and top members of the core group, to help it raise money, recruit fighters and enhance its status among Islamist militants both domestically and internationally.

GSPC’s merger with al Qaeda was certainly not without its difficulties. Indeed, a number of former high-ranking GSPC members turned their backs on AQIM, renouncing violence and pledging their support to the Algerian government against the newly refashioned ideology of the group. For instance, a former senior member of AQIM, Benmessaoud Abdelkader (aka Abu Daoud), who defected in July 2007, told journalists that the organization was riven by heated arguments over Droukdel’s and GSPC’s <link nid="22878">decision to join al Qaeda</link>. The dispute was based on the fact that the merger effectively transformed the group’s ideological platform from primarily domestic to primarily international, extending the group’s target and operational ambit to include foreigners and unarmed civilians.

The shift, however, was not entirely adopted. Rhetorical and tactical elements of GIA and GSPC have endured to date, demonstrated by the fact that the North African al Qaeda node continues to strike a number of targets favored by its predecessors. Indeed, as time showed, AQIM’s ideological platform and target set came to represent a synthesis between a focus on the “near enemy,” when an militant group directs its violence against symbols and representatives of oppressive Muslim regimes (police stations, ministries, etc.), and the “far enemy,” with a more global jihadist focus on a military confrontation with the United States and its allies to exact revenge for the past oppression of Muslims and to prevent future oppression. The focus on the far enemy led to a deep split in the organization, which has led to a decrease in the AQIM’s overall size and logistical capabilities; according to Abdelkader, dozens of foreign fighters deserted after becoming disillusioned with the group’s ideological shift.

Shifts in Strategies and Tactics

2006

For any militant group, target selection and the way it carries out its attacks reflect the group’s ideology, operational capability and overall strategy. Accordingly, in late October 2006, the newly formed Algerian al Qaeda node was quick to demonstrate its <link nid="35348">commitment to strike both the near and far enemy</link>. Over a period of 10 days, AQIM carried out at least four coordinated attacks involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs)against Algerian security and foreign oil establishments in and around Algiers. On Oct. 19, 2006, it conducted two IED attacks, one against a police station in El Harrach, an eastern suburb of Algiers, the other against a fuel-storage site belonging to the French company Razel in Lakhdaria. On Oct. 29, the group conducted <link nid="35348">near-simultaneous vehicle-borne improvised explosive-device (VBIED) attacks</link> against two Algerian police stations in Reghaia and Dergana.

In total, from September to December 2006, AQIM carried out 19 attacks in Algeria -- seven involving the use of IEDs -- that resulted in 39 deaths and 51 injuries to civilian and military personnel. (Measuring lethality by the number of killed and injured per strike, the group managed to kill an average of just over two people and injure roughly four people per attack.) The group also managed to carry out an assault from its Algerian stronghold outside Algeriawhen its operatives killed nine civilians in an armed attack in Araouane, Tombouctou, Mali, in October 2006. It soon became apparent that Droukdel was successfully blending GSPC’s traditional guerilla-style ambush tactics that it had used for years in northeastern Algeria -- representing a balanced use of firearms and explosives -- with <link nid="30263">more sensationalist, al Qaeda-style bombings in urban areas</link>. Indeed, a number of these AQIM attacks went well beyond the relatively more moderate tactics employed by its predecessor.

2007

In July 2007, AQIM released an online statement to the jihadist forums claiming that it had successfully restructured and reformed the militant Islamist resistance in Algeria and that this would lead to the targeting of foreigners and the employment of suicide bombers. Proof of the shift came in April, when the group dispatched <link nid="28691">suicide bombers to deploy two VBIEDs</link> against the prime minister’s office and a police headquarters in Algiers, the first known suicide attacks in Algeria associated with AQIM (there had been one such attack by GIA in January 1995 against a police headquarters in downtown Algiers that killed more than 40 persons).

A VBIED attack against the coast guard barracks in Delly, Boumerdes, east of Algiers, in September was also particularly bloody, with 27 sailors and three civilians killed and approximately 60 people injured. The <link nid="106612">surge in attacks continued well into the year</link>, with a spectacular strike against Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s convoy in the eastern town of Batnain Septemberand <link nid="106552">two simultaneous suicide bombings</link> against the Constitutional Court and the U.N. offices in AlgiersinDecember.

In its campaign to target the far enemy, the newly formed AQIM also began <link nid="24975">striking foreign energy instillations</link> in Algeria in line with al Qaeda’s tactic of <link nid="154910">“economic jihad</link>.” However, despite the expanding target set, AQIM was unable to carry out any significant or truly disruptive attacks against the Algerian energy sector. This was likely because the group, even though it had the intention, lacked the operational strength to hit possible targets in the energy sector, most of which are located far into the southern desert and are well guarded.

In all, there were 33 documented AQIM-related attacks inside Algeria in 2007, 14 (42 percent) of which were conducted using at least an IED and three using a VBIED (some studies put the VBIED figure as high as eight). Combined, they indicate that the use of explosives in AQIM attacks in 2007 went up by more than 50 percent, while the use of firearms dropped considerably. This likely contributed to the alarmingly high casualty rates -- 88 killed and 208 injured -- for total assaults during the year both inside and outside Algeria. In terms of the lethality of the attacks, this translates to roughly 2.5 people killed and six people injured per attack. Outside the group’s Algerian base, AQIM also managed to carry out two armed assaults in Mauritania in December that resulted in seven deaths and one injury. This contributed to the decision by the governing body of the Dakar Rally to cancel the <link nid="108091">annual off-road car race in 2008</link>.

The frequency and lethality of AQIM attacks in 2007 eventually forced the Algerian government’s hand. In mid-2007, security forces launched a <link nid="22878">massive operation against the group</link> that resulted in significant losses of AQIM operatives and materiel. According to the U.S. State Department, the Algerian government killed or captured approximately 1,100 Islamist militants -- nearly double the figure for 2006 -- during the operation.

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Operations in the Maghreb

AQIM also began plotting and carrying out attacks in countries contiguous to Algeria as well as in more distant parts of the Maghreb, an Arabic word meaning “place of sunset” or “the west” that collectively refers to an area encompassing Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania and the disputed territory of the Western Sahara. Operating from its base in the mountainous area east of Algiers, AQIM worked to extend its range across the Maghreb by establishing and loosely orchestrating cells to carry out attacks across North Africa. This effort included <link nid="24410">cells</link> and <link nid="28449">attempted attacks</link>in Morocco andactive cells in<link nid="32626">Tunisia</link>, with <link nid="112623">kidnappings of Westerners</link> and attempted strikes against the U.K. and U.S. embassies and other tourist sites in December 2006 and January 2007 known as the “Soilman” plot.

These attempts were not surprising, since militant Islamist cells and groups were already present in a number of these North African countries. Groups such as Morocco’s Islamic Combatant Group, Libya’s Islamic Fighting Group and a number of similar organizations in Tunisia such as the Tunisian Combatant Group were all likely viewed as potential recruits in AQIM’s attempt to widen its operational scope. However, despite the fact that AQIM had <link nid="34017">ample opportunity to organize affiliate cells</link>, recruit fighters and conduct attacks in these North African countries, its attempts were, for the most part, foiled by authorities in the planning phase.

2008

The year 2008 marked the most lethally successful 12 months for AQIM since its founding. Demonstrating that it was a force to be reckoned with, the group carried out six suicide bombings against police and military targets over an eight-month period, from January to August, including a <link nid="117903">deadly train bombing in June</link>. August turned out to be a particularly aggressive month for the group. AQIM launched 12 attacks across the country, including four suicide VBIED bombings that killed 80 people and injured many more. The <link nid="122357">VBIED attack against a police training academy in Issers</link> was particularly bloody, killing 43. However, it is important to note that most of the targets struck were softer than the hardened targets the group managed to strike in Algiers in 2007, such as the prime minister’s office, the Constitutional Court and the U.N. offices.

Though the overall number of attacks was down by approximately 30 percent from the previous year, the lethality (i.e., the number of dead and wounded per attack) was up almost 100 percent. This is best explained by AQIM’s shift in assault tactics, which saw a 20 percent increase in the use of IEDs, including seven suicide VBIEDs in strikes across Algeria, more than double the year before. Indeed, some sort of explosive was used in almost three-quarters of all AQIM attacks in 2008, further indicating AQIM’s gradual shift away from armed assaults and toward the use of IEDs.

All told, the marked increase in the use of IED and VBIED suicide bombings in 2008 likely accounts for the increase in the lethality of AQIM attacks, which produced an average of more than five deaths and 10 injuries per strike over the course of the year. Moreover, the group’s target set witnessed a remarkable shift from the pre-2006 days of the GSPC. According to West Point’s CombatingTerrorismCenter, prior to GSPC’s merger with al Qaeda, 88 percent of all successful attacks were conducted against Algerian national targets. After the merger, the ratio of attacks against national to international targets reduced a substantial 88 percent [or by a ratio of seven to one] [PLEASE clarify this in copy edit. This comparison is not clear to me. Maybe it’s missing a verb or something]