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| Africa: North |
| Algerian Lessons for Iraq |
| 2005-01-15 |
| Amir Taheri Earlier this month Algerian security forces tracked down and captured Nureddin Boudiafi after a nine-week hunt and five days of intense fire-fights in the woods near the capital Algiers. Wonder who Boudiafi is and why his capture merits attention? Well, the man was the leader of the Islamic Armed Group (GIA), the deadliest of terrorist gangs that have shed Algerian blood, killing over 150,000 people, since 1992. Boudiafi described himself as Emir Al-Momeneen or "Prince of the Faithful", and issued fatwas (religious edicts) sentencing anyone he didn't like to death. He had seized control of the group last July after staging a coup against the then "emir", a certain Rashid Abu-Turab, who had had an equally black record of mischief and murder. Both men had been graduates of the school of terror set up by the so-called "Arab Afghans" in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and belonged to the same movement that produced Osama Bin Laden and Abu-Mussab Al-Zarqawi, the "emir" of the Sunni terrorists in Iraq. So, why is Boudiafi's capture significant? One reason, for starters, is that the capture establishes firmly that the terror groups are now on the run, pursued by the Algerians security. This was not always the case. For more than 10 years the terrorists held the initiative, attacking where and when they wished, forcing the government's forces into a defensive posture. The terrorists specialized in mass killings. In Bin Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, for example, they cut the throats of some 800 people, mostly women and children, in a single night. They also targeted the ordinary personnel of the army and the police, in the hope of discouraging young Algerians from enlisting in government forces. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 This is rather fun - especially given that it comes from ArabNews, heh. So Amir, a very smart guy using the Algerian experience as a relevant corollary and model, confirms what the dastardly "neo-cons" have said and pushed for all along: elections. Double heh. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-01-15 2:02:37 PM |