Crisis shows jihadists increasing

By ROBERT P. PARKS
ALL eyes are on Algeria following the hostage crisis at a BP gas facility that left at least 37 hostages – and dozens of militants – dead.
And while we are uncovering details of what happened at the remote desert complex at Ain Amenas and why, we must also scrutinise what this crisis tells us about security in North Africa, or the Maghreb.
This tragedy is the outcome of a larger series of events that cannot be separated from its transnational – and especially regional – context.
The Maghreb, or “Arab West”, encompasses Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara, spanning from the southern rim of the Mediterranean well into the Sahara. Some argue it also includes Chad, Mali and Niger, where national borders are porous.
The Maghreb region is tied together by these nations’ historical, commercial, religious and, more recently, ideological exchanges.
Despite decades of French and Italian rule, these links between the people and communities of the region never disappeared – in fact, they have moved to the fore in the past 10 years, and accelerated since the Arab Spring.
How do al-Qaeda and other jihadi Islamist movements figure in the context of the region?
The antecedents of the transnational al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are linked to disparate elements of the jihadist movement that lost the 1990s Algerian civil war – among them Moktar Belmoktar, the one-eyed Algerian militant who claimed responsibility for In Amenas.
Though initially based in northern Algeria, they have been present in southern Algeria, northern Mali and Niger for the past 10 years.
Initially involved in smuggling cigarettes, cars, drugs and weapons, the movement has more recently engaged in kidnappings in the Saharan regions that have generated millions of dollars in ransoms.
In 2007 many of these groups officially rallied to al-Qaeda.
The fall of Ben Ali during the Tunisian revolution in 2011 emboldened citizens in neighbouring Libya to rise against Muammar Gaddafi. But as Libya’s Nato-supported rebels closed in on Gaddafi, truckloads of arms left for Northern Mali.
The colonel had actively recruited ethnic Tuaregs from Mali and Niger to form a hard core within his armed forces.
With no place to go in a post-Gaddafi Libya, many rallied to Azawad, their homeland in northern Mali.
Perhaps emboldened by liberation in Tunisia and Libya, in January last year, the National Liberation Movement of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar Dine, the most prominent Tua­reg armed groups, launched a rebellion that pushed the go­vernment from northern Mali.
While the MNLA declared an independent Tuareg state called Azawad, the armed group Ansar Dine rallied to AQIM and another splinter group, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO).
Together, the three announced their aims to push the rebellion to the capital Bamako to impose an Islamic state.
With a war chest filled with monies from smuggling, drugs and ransoms, AQIM has bought sophisticated weaponry smuggled from Libya.
It too has been effective in recruitment – of all the armed movements in northern Mali, none can match its international reputation, puritanical ideology, and potential for wealth accumulation. – CNN