Maghreb counter-terrorism experts and ordinary citizens alike are worried that more attacks on innocent people may follow a new AQIM video. Jamel Arfaoui in Tunis, Siham Ali in Rabat and Mohamed Yahya Ould Abdel Wedoud in Nouakchott contributed to this report – 17/03/10
A new video issued by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) may foreshadow a rise in terrorist attacks, according to regional analysts.
AQIM leader Abou Obeida Youcef last week made the video appeal to Africans to oppose what it called a "Western-Crusading" scheme for a "war by proxy" against Islam and groups like his own.
"[A] wicked plan, of US-European making ... is beginning to take shape on your land and in your skies", Youcef said in the video, which appeared on a jihadist website on March 9th. "This aims to cause tension between us and you and push you into a war against us that you will wage instead of the Crusaders."
Youcef, who according to press reports may have ousted the group’s long-time leader, Abdelmalek Droukdel, addressed both ordinary people and African leaders, who he warned to avoid participating in the conflict.
"As for you, the rulers, I inform you of what your countries will be subjected to if you give in to the calls of the devil," said Youcef. "This is the igniting of tribal conflicts, awakening of dormant animosities and the moving of old sensitivities."
Slaheddine Jourchi, a Tunisian expert on Islamist groups, told Magharebia that he expected the region to witness an escalation in AQIM operations after the video threats.
AQIM "is now able to carry out their threats ... with a large and declared emphasis on Somalia, Mali and Algeria", said the expert, adding that Somalia "has now become a testing ground of force between al-Qaeda, local governments and Western powers. If Somalia falls to al-Qaeda, several problems will befall the countries of the region."
Jourchi said AQIM "seeks to drag the Western powers into directly intervening in Somalia so [al-Qaeda] has an additional pretext to be there and carry out their operations under the guise of fighting the Crusading West."
Tunisian political analyst Adnan Hasnaoui told Magharebia that he expected AQIM would start carrying out their threats "because criminals can’t live without their crimes".
Hasnaoui added that in the current situation, he is "worried that they may carry out acts of revenge against innocent and ordinary people in areas where there aren’t sufficient forces to maintain security."
Countries such as Algeria are already taking a collaborative approach to countering threats such as those issued by AQIM last week. Algeria will hold a meeting in April between military chiefs from the region to look at "practical steps" forward, Abdelkader Messahel, the country’s minister for Maghreb and African affairs, told journalists Tuesday (March 16th).
"Algeria has insisted on the need to respect and renew the bilateral conventions regarding the extradition of terrorist elements" by countries in the region, Messahel said.
In the context of such regional collaboration, Amer Mesbah, a professor of international relations at the University of Algiers, said it was critical to deploy a network to collect information on the movements of AQIM members in order to uncover and head off attacks.
Maghreb residents contacted by Magharebia had negative reactions to the new AQIM video.
Tunisian student Sanaa Haiduri called the AQIM message "pathetic" and rather outdated. "However, this doesn’t mean that there won’t be people who’ll support it and find many justifications for it," added the student.
"Why can’t this al-Qaeda leave us alone?" asked Mauritanian housewife Naha Bint Bouya. "We don’t want violence, extremism or radicalism in religion, as our religious scholars demonstrated a month ago in their open dialogue with the Salafist prisoners here in Nouakchott."
The new AQIM message was issued to find support at a time of increasing crackdowns that have put stress on the group’s human and material resources, Mauritanian Cheikh Ould Taleb said.
"I don’t believe that governments in the region in general will pay no attention to the threats contained in the video," he added. "Instead, they’ll become more convinced of the need for security solutions to the problem of terrorism."
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