Middle East

And no, the title isn’t some kind of National Review fantasy about the links between public broadcasting and Evildoers, but rather about a segment on NPR this morning regarding the State Department’s annual report on terrorism.  

The guest was Ambassador Dell Dailey, who talked at length about foreign fighters in Iraq returning home.  We’ve discussed this on the blog regarding Yemen (of course) and to some extent Algeria.   Dailey focused mostly on Algeria, and how the GPSC has become Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb.  Returning jihadis from Iraq are proving themselves to be even more dangerous and adaptable than their predecessors. 

One thing that Dailey focused on was the Sinjar Records- al-Qaeda paperwork on foreign fighters that was found in Iraq.  Read through this summary if you have some time.  It is fascinating and bizarre- one thing which is rarely talked about is how clericalal-Qaeda is.    The documents show where the fighters are from, contact numbers, items entrusted (”500 riyal and a watch”), etc.   It is jarring and a wierd mix of comedy and horror.  Bureaucracy and suicide bombings mixing. 

 Anyway- I will try to read at least the Middle East section of the State Department report tonight, and will report back on it ASAP.*

*- With more emphasis on the “as possible” than the “soon”. 

A New York Times article today portrays the United Nations as being upset at Algeria for not providing enough security in the run-up to last month’s bombing of the body’s Algerian offices. 

A senior United Nations official said Wednesday that the Algerian government had ignored repeated requests to close off the streets outside the organization’s building in Algiers in the months before a suicide car bombing there last month killed 17 staff members.

“They didn’t say, ‘no,’ they simply didn’t respond,” said the official, Kemal Dervis, leader of the United Nations Development Program, whose offices there were hit by the blast on Dec. 11.

Needless to say, the Algerian government is not too happy with this assessment, and wants to be able to participate in the panel the UN is organizing.   This comes as Algeria is seeing a rise in attacks by Islamists (including the murder last week of three people picking chestnuts, a seemingly random massacre that uncomfortably echoes some of the slaughter of the civil war in the 90’s). 

An article in the new edition of Perspectives on Terrorism describes what it calls “The Algerian Scenario”.  It’s author, Francesco Cavatorta, describes the response the region had to Algeria’s civil war (read these for background and for interesting studies on the war, and this is a pretty good book). 

Anyway, Cavatorta writes:

Ruling regimes across the Middle East and North Africa came to recognize that they enjoyed very little internal legitimacy and that quickly opening up the political system – such as in the case of Algeria - would backfire. Thus, they opted instead for eliminating the Islamists (i.e., Tunisia), for co-optation (i.e., Morocco) or for a mix of the two strategies. No regime risked a full liberalization that would have included an Islamist party running in competitive elections. The Islamists themselves largely opted for political participation under authoritarian constraints in order to satisfy the “security” guarantees regimes needed (e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan and Egypt).

I think this is accurate.  Obviously, regimes in the region were aware of the Islamist danger before the Algerian Civil War, and before the 1990’s were not exactly in a rush to open up their political systems (Egypt’ Mubarak had already had in place his emergency law for 10 years), but the sudden and stark brutality of the Algerian war clearly demonstrated the nightmare scenario. 

And it is happening again, albeit in a new world.  Cavatorta writes that signs point to a  ”lack of legitimacy that the current ruling elites enjoy and indicates that there is a vast gulf between the appearance of Algeria as a stable semi-democracy with a functioning market economy and the reality. It is because of this gulf that Islamism still exercises considerable appeal for ordinary citizens. While it has been driven largely underground, it still represents a significant challenge and once the legacy of the 1990s civil war will have faded, [14] it is likely to come back with a vengeance. The creation of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb might just be the first sign. “

AQIM, responsible for the December bombings, is the new wave of Algerian Islamism, and would like to spread to the other North African countries.   Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and others have to have a plan for how to deal with this, as well as other threats- Islamic and otherwise (see yesterday’s NYT story about the perils of bread subsidies in Egypt).  Iran has been justifiably dominating the headlines and underscores much of the policy-planning in the region, but older, reformed threats from the not-very-distant past are rearing their heads again.   And, sadly, Algeria seems to once again be the harbinger of an ugly future.

On a slightly better note, I can take this opportunity to recommend the late Tahar Djaout’s novel The Last Summer of Reason.   This is a small and beautiful novel about a bookseller whose life is ruined by the rise of Islamists in Algeria.   It never actually says Algeria, or mentions the FIS (instead using the haunting name “The Vigilant Brothers”).  It is a terrifying fable of the destruction of art and literature based on a strict, sword-driven moral code.   It was published after Djaout’s 1993 death at the hands of Islamists, who said he ”wielded a fearsome pen that could have an effect on Islamic sectors”.   So, ok- this isn’t that bright of a note: the world he feared came to pass in a very personal way.   But the bright thing is that, like with Bulgakov, his manuscript didn’t burn, but shows light and inspiration even in dark and weary times.   

An Oliver Guitta article in the Middle East Times from yesterday analyzes the ascent of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, particularly Algeria (Here is an earlier post about the Dec 11th Algiers bombings).   Basically, the thrust of the article is that al-Qaeda is consolidating its influence in the region, and that “One of its primary goals is to federate the main terror organizations in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya in order to attain full regional reach.”   I personally doubt that this will ever really be the case, as one of the toughest things to do in the world is to get a bunch of disjointed revolutionaries to fall under one flag, even if it is that of bin Laden.  I’ll get into that more in a later post.

 But one of the more interesting passages in the article is this, which I will quote at some length.

And the Dec. 11 spectacular double suicide bombings in Algiers against the United Nations and Algeria’s constitutional court are the latest proof of AQIM’s potential to create chaos in North Africa.

The symbolical aspect of these attacks is very important. First, Dec. 11, 1960 is a crucial date in Algeria’s history of independence from France. The constitutional court happens to be located on the December 11 Boulevard.

And most importantly the “11th” factor is one of al-Qaida’s hallmarks: not only for 9/11 in the United States, but also for 3/11 in Madrid and AQIM’s suicide attacks on 3/11 in Casablanca, 4/11 in Algiers, 7/11 in Lakhdaria in Algeria and now 12/11.

AQIM has succeeded in creating an “11″ psychosis; some in Algeria even describe the 11th as “the date of the devil.”

Now, this is interesting.  When the 3/11 Madrid attacks hit, there was a lot of conspiratorial kerfluffle and internet numerological time-wastery, and it was easily dismissed.   That stuff is fun to an extent, but meaningless (Oh! Here’s one! Allende was overthrown in Chile on 9/11 in 1973- that is the date of CIA underground ops, obviously).  People are conditioned to look for patterns, as they provide a level of comfort in times of chaos.  Even if we don’t like the order, the idea that human events are controlled by grand plans is a strangely reassuring one. 

But all the “11’s” in ALgeria might actually conform to something.  I would imagine it was a coincidence at first, but terrorists are often not dummies.  When there are random explosions, people are scared but it isn’t always at the forefront of the mind.  But if there is a specific day every month, the lead-up can become unbearable.   And that, after all, is one of terrorism’s main goals.

Secondarily, forcing a pattern onto the chaos can help if the goal of AQIM is really to consolidate power in the Maghreb.   It makes them seem more powerful and competent.   It can help bring splinter groups under their umbrella.

 Again, though, this is just light Christmas speculation. 

At least 60 people have been killed as a result of two bombings in Algiers today- one near a government bulding and the other near United Nations offices.    The government is sure that the GSPC is responsible (The GSPC, a splinter of the GIA group which waged the civil war in the 1990s,  was known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, and now call themselves al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb).   However, recently, there has been chatter of another geographically-named Islamist group in Algeria,  the Organization of al-Qaeda in the Land of the Berbers.   The GSPC has been suffering defections and low morale, and this could be an operation to staunch a decline, or it could be the first blow of an upstart group.  These bombings fit the goals of the GSPC, which is to topple the secular Algerian government and attack Western targets, but these goals are not exclusive to them.  And  while it seems unlikely that a new group could pull off such a devastating attack, it is important to remember that this is battle-hardened Algeria, where even new-comers have long experience with war.   Paying attention to who is ultimately resposible for this attack will help illuminate whether Algeria is dealing with a single, focused group or a number of splintered factions, eager to prove their mettle.