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| Africa: North |
| GSPC gearing up for major attack |
| 2005-08-10 |
| Algerian police are on high alert over the threat of an attack by the al-Qaeda aligned militant Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) - possibly on the capital, Algiers, itself, the pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported on Monday. The number of GSPC incursions in Algeria have increased recently, especially in provinces to the east of the capital, the paper said. New military units have been deployed to the area around Boumerdes, 45 kilometres east of Algiers, believed to be the militants' stronghold, where the Algerian army has suffered its worst losses. The newly deployed Algerian troops are especially keen to rout the Dals group, a small formation Algerian intelligence reckons to contain some 30 militants, led and trained by Yhaya Abu al-Haytham. The group is notorious for its rapid and deadly military actions during which the guerrillas split into two smaller more 'agile' groups. Haytham has been fighting in the area for 10 years. Military experts say he knows the terrain around Boumerdes and the various hiding places intimately. He is very close to Hasan Hattab, the GSPC founder and former leader. So far, 19 militants from the Dals group have been captured and sentenced to death. Although militant attacks have decreased in Algeria in recent years, and have been sporadic over the past twelve months, they have never entirely ceased. In June, the GSPC claimed responsibility for an attack on a military base in northeastern Mauritania, close to the border with Algeria, in which at least 15 soldiers were killed. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |