Interesting articel from CTC Sentinel
AQIM and the Growth of International Investment in North Africa, PDF, 116 KB ----->

CTC = COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER AT WEST POINT

This PDF is an excerpt of the CTC Sentinel - Volume 2-Issue 11 (November 2009)

Regards

Ulrich

Mahmoud Mohareb

For disturbing reading on the Austrians disappearance read The Dark Sahara by jeremy keenan. I think this thesis that US and Algerian secret services had something to do with the kidnappings might explain exactly why Algeria and Libya remain untouched. Some countries matter more to us than others, and its the old issue my friends - big black gold. My feeling is the whole AQIM thing is of our (the west, more specifically the US) making - we turned a group who had a valid issue with their government but who were nothing but a bunch of bandits with no popular support into something with international credibility who no longer need support. And why? BECAUSE WE WANT THEM THERE, WE WANT THERE TO BE A PROBLEM.

Having said all this, the reason i logged in was to warn everyone away from Bordj Moktar border with Mali. I just had a close shave there and if it wasnt for my local contacts I'd be with the others now. Algerian side secure, malian side - Halid - they don't care. The police just want you gone, even if it is to your capture. They are powerless to do anything. My guides were attacked 60km on from HArlid and the place felt very creepy, towards Tessalit. We had been targeted. Luckily we turned back, had sent on the cars with no tourists and we had all returned to exit Algeria by plane. The whole border regions of north and east Mali is where it is at this year. Last year it was more Niger, but word is that that is all pretty OK now.

I don't think Keenan has any answers to the many valid questions as to the extent of Algerian involvement.
Who's the "we" you're referring to? The "west"?

Please describe in more detail what happened as it is important for us who would like to travel in the region to know what is going on. Why is Niger OK? - there is scant reporting from there, but there were two attacks reported this fall.

might explain exactly why Algeria and Libya remain untouched

I dont think you can lump Libya in with Alg so readily. Although I admit 2003 was not purely a GSPC job (in other words not all of JK's speculation is rubbish), I think part of the reason these 2 countries and Morocco are less unsafe is that they are wealthy enough to operate secret police etc to do something about it. Mali and Niger are very poor countries by comparison.

Are police and customs back in Ikhalil/'Halid'? They'd abandoned it in 2006 and when we arrived from Mori and at that time there was also talk of attacks on locals on the track to Tessalit which is why we didn't go there to check out or Mali officially (having not checked in anyway).
I suspect raids on locals up there are quite common up there but of course they don't make international news.

I agree that Niger - or at least touristic Tenere (always less risky in an AQIM sense than NE Mali) may be coming out of the dark - the resumption of Le Point flights being a good indicator.

Ch

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Morocco Overland 4 pre-order for Xmas • Trans Morocco Trail

Another thought in explaining the issue of no kidnappings in Algeria since 2003 when Mali, Tunisia, Mauri & Niger have all been on the list.

So far the explanations include:
1) AQ-M deal with Alg government
2) something to do with guides and the contract they sign and the possibility that AQ-M steer clear as they don't want guides to get it in the neck (not much support on the Hubb for this BTW).

Additionally, it seems to me that the AQ-M branch in N Mali, which is responsible for the kidnappings, may have done a deal with the AQ-M branch in N Algeria - a deal along the lines that AQ-M in N Mali stay off the Algerian patch. That makes more sense to me than AQ-M doing a deal with the Algerian govt. I recall reading that AQ-M in N Mali broke away from AQ-M in N Algeria when the leader of the Mali branch didn't make it to the CEO post of AQ-M.

Sounds very plausible to me - didnt someone suggest the Jeune Afrique article said as much - or at least 'infighting' (looked for JA online but could not find it) and all the more likely if there is big money from trafficking involved. But then would N. Mali AQIM sector risk coming up all the way to Tunisia to grab the Austrians? Or maybe that was done by a breakaway NE Alg faction. Who knows.

btw, IMO the quote from Geoff D. Porter sounds like very generalised waffle to me. You could say as much for much of the developing world.

Ch

__________________
Morocco Overland 4 pre-order for Xmas • Trans Morocco Trail

washingtonpost.com

Djazair News

Gogoonisch - Englisch

Regards

Ulrich

maliweb.net :: Lutte anti-terrorisme : Quand le Général ATT se trompe de cible

Gogoonisch

Regards

Ulrich

Hello,

see an actual video from Al Jazeera about the armory of Al Qaeda in Mauritania

YouTube - Al-Qaeda branch in 'Sahara Emirate' - 4 Jan 10

Regards

Ulrich

some clarity on Gaddafi's position on AQ-M:

News - Africa: Al-Qaeda members remain behind bars - Gaddafi

He doesn't want them on his patch - as many in this thread have argued.....

Al-Qaeda members remain behind bars - Gaddafi


By Lamine Ghanmi

Rabat - Libya will hold up to 300 al-Qaeda members in jail indefinitely after they have completed their prison terms to stop them staging fresh attacks, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Thursday.

"These people are heretics. They are followers of (Osama) Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri. They killed a number of civilians and police," Gaddafi told a gathering of his top legislative body, referring to al-Qaeda's two global commanders.

"It is a necessity to keep them in prison. They are very dangerous as they are ready to resume killing people in our streets here or travel to Algeria or Egypt or elsewhere to stage attacks," he said in remarks broadcast on state television and monitored in Rabat.

'It is a necessity to keep them in prison'
It was not immediately clear if Gaddafi's comments marked an end to a government policy of seeking reconciliation with jailed leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a radical group with has had ties to al-Qaeda.

A Libyan civic activist involved closely in negotiations between jailed Islamists and the government said he believed that the reconciliation talks would continue, but that Gaddafi was making clear it would be on his terms.

"Gaddafi's tough tone is aimed as backing the government's stand that only Islamists who accept the government's line that no opposition to it will be tolerated, will be be freed from prison," said the activist, who did not want to be named.

Reconciliation with radicals Islamists has been one of the bones of contention in a struggle for influence between a reform-minded camp represented by one of Gaddafi's sons, Saif al-Islam, and a conservative old guard.

That struggle also has focused on Libya's lucrative energy sector, where international firms including BP and Exxon Mobile have invested billions of dollars.

Saif al-Islam has backed reconciliation efforts, and urged reform of Libya's judicial system to make it fairer.

LIFG's leaders wrote a 400-page renunciation of al-Qaeda thinking last year, and the document was held up by some Islamic scholars as a model of how to turn radical young people away from joining violent militant groups.

The LIFG staged bloody battles in oil exporter Libya in the 1990s, killing dozens of soldiers and policemen in a failed attempt to topple Gaddafi.

Libyan security forces gradually crushed the rebellion at the end of the 1990s, killing scores of Islamist fighters, and jailing hundreds of others.

Some of the group's figures fled to Afghanistan where they became close to Bin Laden and Zawahiri and took on the role of al-Qaeda ideologues.

"Who would vouch for these 300 or 100 dangerous people not getting out of jail and starting again to kill innocent people in the streets and stage bombings?" Gaddafi told the General People's Congress (GPC) at his home-town of Sirte.

Gaddafi made the comment on the prisoners after Justice Minister Mustapaha Abdeljalil had asked the Congress to accept his resignation.

He said he wanted to step down in protest at what he called the failure by the authorities to free detainees years after they had completed their prison sentences or been acquitted.

"These people constitute a danger even when the court had pronounced its verdict. Security authorities are the ones who are responsible for this matter to say whether they are dangerous or not. The court verdict is void of reason in such cases," Gaddafi said.

Gaddafi also told the minister that the congress was not the right place to discuss his resignation. - Reuters

Here's an integrative analysis on the Sahel, Al-Qaeda, drug trafficants and the recent kidnaps:

Al-Qaeda, drug traffic alliance threatens Sahel security (Magharebia.com)


It sure doesn't look promising....

José



Al-Qaeda, drug traffic alliance threatens Sahel security

2010-01-08

Three men from Mali, with alleged links to a rebel group from South America, were recently arrested in Ghana and flown to the United States to face trial. Many Maghreb observers, however, are feeling repercussions from the international criminal case much closer to home.
Oumar Issa, Harouna Touré and Idriss Abelrahman are accused of conspiring to finance al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operations by transporting drugs. According to the US indictment announced on December 19th, the Malians agreed to help the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) move Europe-bound cocaine from Ghana to the North African desert.
But their South American contacts were not members of the al-Qaeda linked Colombian rebel group that uses Africa as a drug-trafficking gateway to Europe; they were US intelligence agents.
"The involvement of al-Qaeda in the drugs trade does not come as a surprise," Maghreb affairs expert Nasr El Din Ben Hadid told Magharebia. "They adopt the principle of 'the ends justify the means'."
"The fact that terrorist groups have resorted to the trafficking of drugs is an open secret," agreed Amine Kirem, an Algerian researcher on Islamic movements.
"Investigations carried out by the special services in Algeria have highlighted a very close relationship between terrorist groups and drug barons," he explained, adding that terrorists are using the illegal drug trade to buy weapons and explosives.
"During the 1990s, these groups had the money they needed to fund their activities. This is no longer the case," Kirem said.
Desperate circumstances are prompting desperate measures, according to Algerian security expert Elias Boukeraa.
"Having been beaten politically and militarily, terrorists in the Sahel are trying to bounce back by creating more armed cells within this vast region. These groups are exploiting the poor socioeconomic situation and armed conflicts in an attempt to re-establish themselves," he said.
The region must now face a "confirmed" link between terrorist groups and drug-trafficking networks, former Malian Defence Minister Soumeylou Maiga Boubey told an Algiers conference on December 28th.
"Mafia activity, the trafficking of drugs and arms and kidnappings are all methods used by these groups," he said.
"To say that the danger is far away from our borders and shirk our responsibilities is to make a huge mistake. Terrorism poses a serious threat to stability and peace in the region," the former minister added.
North Africa, the Sahel/Sahara region and the whole of West Africa are particularly affected by the problem, said Moroccan security and terrorism expert Mohammed Benhemmou.
"Over the past few years we have witnessed a change in the routes by which drugs are trafficked, from Latin America, via West Africa and across the desert towards the target markets, taking advantage of the failure of certain countries to monitor what is going on in their territory," he said.
Morocco, according to a source within the Ministry of the Interior, has long been aware of the activities of terrorist organisations and the ways by which they are financed. The government is therefore implementing anti-money laundering laws and other initiatives targeting organised crime and drug trafficking.
But terrorism cannot be defeated by one country alone, Benhemmou pointed out: "Even though the ends of drug trafficking and terrorism are not the same, since the former is done for financial gain and the latter for political, the two activities assist one another."
Even if Morocco steps up checks along its borders and inside its own territory, neighbourly relations in the region are fragile and a high degree of co-operation is required if goals are to be reached, the expert said.
To this end, Arab states are co-ordinating efforts to dry out funding resources for terror operations. Last September, the Secretariat-General of the Council of Interior Ministers endorsed a three-year plan to implement a unified Arab strategy for combating illegal drugs and the related issue of money-laundering.
Algerian expert Boukeraa proposed going even further, suggesting to Magharebia that all countries in the region should consider creating a combined army to overcome the threat. Pan-Arab initiatives against drug-related crimes and states' focus on internal security, however, are not the whole story, argued Lahcen Daoudi, an MP for Morocco's Party of Justice and Development.
"Whether we're talking about terrorism or drug trafficking, we have to look inwards to find the root causes," he said. "Why do people become terrorists or drug traffickers? We need to know the reasons underpinning it so that we can do something about them. One way of doing that is take action in schools."
Beyond discussions of regional security concerns, Maghreb counter-terrorism strategies and social projects to stem the problem at its source, some people question the sheer incongruity of terrorists who claim faith but use drug trafficking as a source of income.
"This is a crime against ethics, human rights, and religion, a crime against Islam, because the fatwa they use to justify such crimes take place under the banner of Islam," said Sami Burham, a Tunisia-based expert on Islamic groups.
"I think they justified their selling of drugs on the basis of a fatwa that permitted Muslims to sell alcohol to non-Muslims," Burham added. "Terrorists use the same logic to rob money from non-Muslims to finance jihad, because according to that fatwa, non-Muslims have no sanctity."
Drugs are also being used to lure the next generation of terrorists.
According to Salim Ahmed, an Algerian journalist who specialises in security issues, the failure of "extremist religious" arguments has spurred these groups to seek new ways of operating and recruiting new members.
"Young people no longer believe promises that they will go to heaven. It was necessary to find another way of recruiting them to commit acts of violence," Ahmed said. "Drugs are one such method." promising
Indeed, he said, "several suicide bombers have acted under the influence of drugs".
"People who have slit infants' throats, raped women, killed themselves or blown themselves up cannot have been in full control of their senses," he concluded.

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Desert Crocodiles of Mauritania: http://cibio.up.pt/crocodilos/en

Olá José de Brito,

thank you for this document.
Drug traffic or/and weak central power of poor countries? That's what is all about?

Rui Pedro.
Castro Verde - Alentejo

Hi,

In a nutshell, I would say yes!

The Sahara has always been a land of business, smuggling, and assaults. The mixture between Islamic fundamentalists and smugglers is only an extension of a “traditional” way of living. Of course it doesn’t bring any good for independent travelling, but it never did in the past anyway… The generally weak Sahelian governments may not be able to detain the creation of a new “narco-Sahara” country (resembling a bit Colombia…), in comparison with the tighter and more powerful Mediterranean governments. I don’t want (nor wish!) to sound pessimistic, but I see the current situation as something that will tend to last for the next decade or so….

Cheers,
José

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Desert Crocodiles of Mauritania: http://cibio.up.pt/crocodilos/en